All My Love, Tonks
by premadora girl
Summary: On the eve of her departure for Hogwarts, Tonks writes to her cousin's best friend Remus Lupin for advice about not being sorted into Slytherin. A tentative friendship blossoms through exchanged letters but is dogged by secrets and shame. Remadora slow burn.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello and welcome to my fic! I'm a sucker for stories told through letters. There's so much opportunity to read between the lines and discern what people are feeling about each other. What do they put on the page and what do they hold back? How quickly do they reply? Which questions do they answer and which do they ignore?**

 **I've been wondering what made a vivacious, oddball girl like Nymphadora Tonks become something so formidable as an Auror, and how much she knew about her cousin Sirius's involvement in the Order of the Phoenix as she was growing up. When, also, did she find out her future husband was a werewolf? This is my attempt to answer those questions while following canon as closely as possible.**

 **In this chapter, Tonks is embarking on her first year at Hogwarts and is eleven. Remus is living in a cottage in Yorkshire and is twenty-four.**

...

 _August 22, 1984_

Dear Mr Lupin,

That sounds so formal. We have met, you know, but it was four years ago so you probably don't remember me. I was with my mum in Diagon Alley, and you were with my cousin Sirius and they stopped to talk. You said you liked my lilac hair and I said I liked your moustache. Do you still have it? I was only just seven and you and Sirius couldn't stop long because you were busy. I found out this year that it was probably about the time … oh, but I wasn't going to bring that up. Sorry.

Anyway. Why I'm writing to you. I'm going off to school next week. Mum says I'm being silly and that I'll get what I am given and I'll be happy about it but I DON'T WANT TO BE A SLYTHERIN. Can you please tell me how I can make sure I'm a Gryffindor like you and Sirius?

Yours,

Dora (It's Nymphadora really but I HATE when people call me that. Terrible thought – will the teachers insist on calling me Nymphadora at school?)

P.S. I hope you don't mind me writing but I didn't know who else to ask. People don't like to talk about what house the Blacks … but then you probably know all about that better than me.

...

 _August 24, 1984_

Dear Dora,

When I got your letter I sat down and had a think for a while and tried to remember that day in Diagon Alley. I don't often go there so I thought it should stand out, but then people were always stopping to talk to Sirius. He knew everyone. But then I remembered – we were outside Ollivander's and your mother was carrying a new, very grand, very grumpy owl in a cage and it was snapping at her fingers. I realised it was he who came swooping through my window with your letter. His temper seems to have settled.

Why don't you want to be a Slytherin? I think I may know why but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Try not to feel too anxious about Hogwarts. It's a marvellous place. My time there was the happiest of my life.

I still have my moustache. What colour is your hair now?

Yours,

Remus

P.S. You are quite safe from your name. The teachers will all call you Miss Tonks.

...

 _August 25, 1984_

Dear Remus,

Yes, that was the day we bought Nimblin! You do remember! He can still be a cantankerous old coot. My hair changes colour with my mood. At the moment it is bright pink because I am so happy you wrote back.

So. Why I don't want to be a Slytherin. I'm half Black, you see, and they're all Slytherins except for Sirius. I just know the Sorting Hat is going to put me in that house. Mum was a Slytherin like her sisters and she says Slytherins are very clever and that she had a great time at school. But, you know, that was BEFORE. Before she married a half-blood and before my aunts went over to You-Know-Who. Mum was the daughter of an important family and had a big sister that everyone was terrified of. (I'm still terrified of Bellatrix even though I've never met her and she's in Azkaban now.)

I'm not explaining myself very well, and I don't want to hurt you by bringing up things you don't want to think about. I'm only eleven but I know more than my mother thinks I do about what happened three years ago.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 28, 1984_

Dear Dora,

That is a remarkable talent you have in being able to change your hair colour. Am I right in thinking that you are a budding Metamorphmagus? How simply wonderful if so. Do you know how rare you are? You need never worry that you will be like your aunts because you are very much your own person. Professor McGonagall will be simply delighted with you. You'll see what I mean when you get there.

Any house at Hogwarts will be lucky to have you.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 5, 1984_

Dear Remus,

I am so sorry that it has taken me a week to write back, but so much has been happening! The train, the sorting, the feast. Getting my schedule. Going to my first classes.

You're right, I am a Metamorphmagus. I was very excited to attend my first Transfiguration class as I saw Professor McGonagall teaches it and I remembered her name from your letter. When we went into her classroom there was no teacher there, just a lovely tabby cat sitting on her desk, watching us all. But you'll never guess – she was the cat! Oh, but you know that of course. When I showed her that I could grow fur too she told me not to show off as it was disruptive, but she smiled when she said it so I don't think she was really angry.

The best thing of all is that I'm not a Slytherin! I've been sorted into HUFFLEPUFF! I'm so happy. Hufflepuffs believe in kindness and loyalty, hard work and fairness. I believe in all those things, Remus. Maybe I'll be happy here after all.

The only class I don't like is Potions as Professor Snape is frightening. Why does he have to teach in a freezing old dungeon? I don't think he likes Hufflepuffs very much. He said that we'd only have to 'put up with each other' for a short time as Hufflepuffs don't attend his advanced classes. Do you know him? Does he not let Hufflepuffs take Advanced Potions? Well, I don't care if he does or not, I'm NOT taking Advanced Potions. He reminds me too much of my aunts. It's the eyes.

Are you sure that I didn't upset you with what I put in my other letters? You have been so kind to me that I feel dreadful about bringing up the things I did.

I'm in the library and it's curfew for the first-years now. I had better say goodbye.

Yours,

Dora

...

 **Did you enjoy chapter one? I hope so! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much to those who have already reviewed, favourited or followed this story! It was so lovely of you to get on board from chapter one. A big thank you to everyone reading this new chapter as well as it means I've piqued your curiosity. I hope you enjoy the next instalment!**

...

 _September 9, 1984_

Dear Dora,

I remember vividly the excitement and exhaustion of my first week at Hogwarts. You have done well to remember to write back at all.

Yes, I know Professor Snape. We were in the same year at Hogwarts, and I suppose he might remind you of your aunts because he too is a Slytherin. I don't know why he said Hufflepuffs don't attend his advanced classes, but if I had to guess I would say that they do and he was trying to discourage you. He prefers the students of his own house.

You seem like you are settling in beautifully. Best of luck in your academic career.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 27, 1984_

Dear Remus,

A terrible thing has happened and there's no one else I can tell. Three days ago a Slytherin called me 'blood traitor' in the great hall, and I think almost everyone heard. He said my mother was the worst sort of blood traitor for marrying a mudblood and that I was lucky I wasn't put in Slytherin with the pure-bloods and proper witches and wizards as then they'd have to 'teach me a lesson'. I don't know what he meant but I don't want to know.

The worst part is that until that moment I don't think the other Hufflepuffs knew my mother is a Black, and now they're all afraid of me. I heard some of them whispering that I was probably meant to be in Slytherin like my cousin Sirius. They think that it was a mistake he was Sorted into Gryffindor considering what he did. I was so relieved I am in Hufflepuff but now it's all ruined.

Can I tell you a secret? I loved my cousin Sirius so much. Even though I know he's a terrible person for what he did and no one can ever forgive him, sometimes I have nightmares about him in Azkaban, alone in a cold cell while the Dementors suck every good thought and memory out of him. It's too cruel a punishment. I think I still love him. Do you think that's wrong?

Yours,

Dora

P.S. After your last letter I told myself that I wouldn't write back because you probably don't want to talk about stupid school problems with an eleven-year-old after all you've been though. You can tear this up if you want to, I'll understand.

...

 _September 30, 1984_

Dear Dora,

I am very sorry to hear that you were called a blood traitor and your father a mudblood, and I am dismayed that this sort of prejudice still lingers. The parents of your classmates all lived through You-Know-Who's reign of terror and should have passed understanding and tolerance onto their children.

It is a hard and painful thing to be different. I urge you to remember that you are not your parents' decisions. You are not your blood. You are not your aunts' cruelty or your cousin's betrayal. You are just you, Dora, and that is a very good and noble thing to be indeed.

I still love Sirius, too. To this day I don't understand why he did what he did. I don't think I ever will.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 5, 1984_

Dear Remus,

I read your letter and cried. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 20, 1984_

Dear Remus,

I have survived my first term at Hogwarts and tomorrow I am going home for the Christmas holidays. I haven't forgotten your kindness. In fact, I think about it every day, and I hope that you are happy.

Here is my best scarlet rockinghorse flower that I grew myself from a seedling in Herbology. I pressed it in my copy of _A History of Hogwarts_ for two weeks, and if it survives the owl post it should keep very well for you if you put it in a book.

Merry Christmas!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1984_

Dear Dora,

The scarlet rockinghorse flower was in perfect condition when it arrived. I dug out my old copy of _A History of Hogwarts_ and it's safely pressed between the pages of chapter six.

I enclose a sketch of Nimblin. I hope I caught his likeness.

Merry Christmas,

Remus

...

 _January 2, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I was so happy to see your owl tapping on the living-room window on Christmas night! Thank you so much for the sketch. You draw beautifully. How did you spend your Christmas?

I am going back to school tomorrow and I think I will have a friend to sit with on the train. That Slytherin boy (his name is Vincent Redfern) called me blood traitor again just before the end of term but another boy called Charlie Weasley heard and punched him in the face. He got detention with Professor Snape but he said it was worth it. We have Charms with the other Gryffindors (Charlie's in Gryffindor).

I showed Nimblin his likeness. He was very pleased with it and is delivering this letter to you in the very best of moods.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 21, 1985_

Dear Remus,

Something has been bothering me since I got your last letter on Christmas night. My parents weren't happy when I told them I'd been writing to you and they didn't want me to reply. I had to sneak the letter out to Nimblin when they weren't looking and they were angry when they found he had gone. I don't care, though. They couldn't tell me anything about you that was shameful or wrong. My mother said your mother was a muggle (I'm sorry she died) though I know that doesn't matter to her or anyone that counts. But she had a funny look on her face and told me to stop asking questions and to stop writing to you.

I got used to thinking of you as my friend and I want to keep writing to you. I don't understand why I shouldn't.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 11, 1985_

Dear Remus,

Why haven't you replied?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 16, 1985_

Dear Dora,

It's best if you follow your parents wishes and cease writing to me. I am truly sorry that I have caused you trouble at home. It's not proper for a grown man to correspond with an eleven-year-old, in any case.

Remus

...

 **I think Dora is going to have a hard time convincing him to continue to write to her. How do you think she might manage it?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you again for the reviews and follows! I'm so glad you're enjoying the story.**

 **In this chapter Dora turns twelve and Remus (unbeknownst to Dora which is why she gets his age wrong) turns twenty-five on March 10. His birthday is canon but I had to make hers up.**

...

 _February 17, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I will not follow my parents wishes if there is no good reason to! I like writing to you and I think you like writing to me. You never said so but I can just feel it. When I see an owl arrive with a letter in your lovely slanted writing it makes me smile. (I'm sorry that my handwriting isn't nearly as lovely as yours, but I hope it makes you smile, too.)

And may I remind you that I am NEARLY TWELVE.

Yours, (you forgot the yours in your last letter)

Dora

...

 _March 6, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I have not given up on you. I am determined to get another letter out of you if it takes all year. My parents are prejudiced about something and I don't know what it is but I'm sure that it doesn't matter and I won't LET it matter. So there.

It is very, very cold here in the castle and Potions class is an utter misery. Snape says my name funny. 'Miss _Tonks_ ', like he's leaning very hard on the fact that I'm a Tonks, and he puts so much hiss into the 's' he sounds like a snake. Professor Snake. That's a good name for him.

I'm doing very well in Herbology and Transfiguration, and Professor McGonagall has said that she might talk to Professor Dumbledore about extra lessons in Metamorphmagology for me as I'm the only Metamorphmagus in the whole school. Can you believe it? It won't be until at least fifth-year, though. We're not allowed anything fun in first year.

Today we practiced the Knockback jinx in Defence Against the Dark Arts and I think I shouted 'Flipendo' a little too loud or waved my wand with a little too much flourish as I knocked Phoebe Evercreech back so hard against the classroom wall that she had to be sent to Madam Pomfrey. Oh, dear. Phoebe was finally starting to speak to me again.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 19, 1985_

Dear Remus,

No reply still? Well, I'll get one out of you eventually. Don't forget that Hufflepuffs are LOYAL and DETERMINED. Well, we're hard-working and that's sort of the same thing.

Did you ever go into the Hufflepuff common room when you were at Hogwarts? I don't suppose you did as we're not allowed in each other's common rooms. It's down near the kitchens and to get in you have to tap a the right barrel to the rhythm of 'Helga Hufflepuff'. If you do it wrong a barrel explodes and you get covered in vinegar. The common room itself is a lovely buttery yellow and all the wood is honey-coloured. It's such a warm, cosy room. There are plants everywhere. Professor Sprout is our Head of House and she brings the most beautiful flowers and ferns in from the greenhouses.

So many professors have been here for years and years so I'm sure they taught you. That's such a nice thought. I mentioned your name to Charlie Weasley and he said that his father knows you and cannot speak highly enough of you. If Charlie Weasley's father is says you are a good sort then I believe it.

You said you are a grown man but I don't think twenty-four is so dreadfully old. Do you have a girlfriend? What do you do for work? What is the Gryffindor common room like?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _April 2, 1985_

Dear Remus,

This morning over breakfast I was entertaining all the Hufflepuffs by turning my nose into a duck's beak and a pig's snout, and then I grew cat whiskers. They were all laughing and it felt so good to be able to make them happy. Here are some pictures I drew of my nose in different shapes. You'll have to imagine my hair bright blue because I only have black ink.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _April 15, 1985_

Dear Remus,

You see? I haven't given up on you. You probably think that I will in time if you go on being silent. That sort of thing would work on a Slytherin. It might even work on a Ravenclaw or a Gryffindor but it would NEVER work on a Hufflepuff.

Do you remember how I said I knew a lot more about the things that happened three years ago than my mother thinks? Well, I know that Sirius was in a secret group working against the Death Eaters, and he betrayed them too when he betrayed Lily and James Potter. Were you in that secret group?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 3, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I think I've done something bad. I don't know if it's awful or REALLY truly terribly awful. Every time I seem like I've made a friend I say something or do something to ruin it with my clumsy magic or my clumsy mouth.

Today in Defence Against the Dark Arts I asked about Patronuses and how to make them talk. The teacher said we don't need to learn how to cast Patronuses as they're only used by Dark wizards to break out of Azkaban. She said it's nonsense they can talk, too. But Charlie Weasley told me that his dad delivers messages home from the Ministry all the time using his talking weasel Patronus. And I SAID that in class. The words just came out.

The teacher looked really annoyed with me, and then she said the name 'Weasley' a few times, thoughtfully. And I felt so afraid because I think I may have said something I shouldn't have. Maybe Charlie told me a secret and I just told the WHOLE CLASS and now his father will get into trouble.

I turn twelve tomorrow and I thought I'd be excited but I just feel sick.

It's raining and I'm going to get so wet going down to the owlery. I'm tempted just to tear this letter up because you probably won't even read it.

Dora

...

 _May 5, 1985_

Dear Dora,

Merlin's beard, who is this Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Dumbledore has chosen? What she has told you is untrue, for several reasons:

1\. A witch or wizard could never use a Patronus to break out of Azkaban as the prisoners are not allowed wands.

2\. A Dark wizard would have a lot of trouble conjuring a Patronus at all as you have to think of a truly happy memory without any Darkness in it.

3\. Patronuses can certainly be used to deliver messages (Dumbledore himself discovered the spell-working).

4\. All Hogwarts students should, when the time comes, learn how to conjure a Patronus.

It is admirable that you are already thinking about more advanced forms of magic, but as long as it is only thinking that you are doing. Trying things before you are ready can be very dangerous. There are special circumstances that might warrant a young person performing more advanced magic, but we are not living in those times.

I am sure that you have done the Weasleys no harm by mentioning Arthur Weasley's Patronus in class. Remember, though, that your friends will value your trustworthiness as much as they do your good company.

Happy birthday for yesterday.

Yours,

Remus

...

 **He wrote back! Well, a future Defence Against the Dark Arts professor could hardly let such ridiculous lies about Patronuses go uncorrected.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Has anyone else tried the _Fantastic Beasts: Cases from the Wizarding World_ game app? You play a new recruit from Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and investigate mysteries involving magical beasts. My character is called Phoebe Evercreech so I couldn't resist inserting her into this story! In this fic, she's a first-year Hufflepuff along with Tonks. **

**Thanks to everyone reviewing and favouriting! You all get a pink pygmy puff.**

 **In this chapter Tonks begins her second year at Hogwarts.**

...

 _May 7, 1985_

Dear Remus,

You do read my letters! I feel happier than I have in weeks. My hair turned from blue-grey to magenta when I saw the owl drop your letter onto my breakfast plate. Phoebe Evercreech said that I didn't even look that happy on my birthday. (We are good friends again and we even practised the Knockback charm on each other for fun, knocking each other onto our beds and laughing.)

Do you mean that if You-Know-Who was still around I would be learning how to cast a Patronus now? People talk about him A LOT (though not by name of course) and they wonder if he's really, truly gone. Charlie says that there's still loads of Dark magic about. What if another Dark witch or wizard tried to form a group like the Death Eaters?

Bill Weasley, Charlie's older brother, says there's been a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher every year that he's been here, and we've got a particularly bad one right now. Her name is Professor Starkness. Why doesn't anyone want to stay in that job?

Oh, I've just had a thought – what's your Patronus? My mother's is a hedgehog and my father's is a kestrel. I can't wait to find out what mine is.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Nimblin brought me a cake and a silver charm bracelet from my parents. It's got two charms on it so far, a wand and a book. I gave Nimblin some cake as it was heavy and he seemed so grumpy about carrying it.

I am listening very hard to your advice, Remus, and I think you are right about trust being an important part of friendship. I don't want you to think I'm a blab. I don't show your letters to anyone. Would you mind, though, if I told Phoebe and Charlie about your four reasons why our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is wrong? I don't think they can be counted as a confidence as they're facts, not personal secrets.

But if you ever told me any secrets about yourself I would never, EVER tell anyone. I promise.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 25, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I see you have returned to not writing to me! I could pretend that you have forgotten it's the summer holidays and you've sent an owl to Hogwarts instead of to my home, but who can forget that it's summer when the weather is so glorious!

You will have noticed that Nimblin has delivered this letter to you. I am not going to sneak the letter to him. I am writing it right now on the kitchen table and I've told my mother who it's to. She pursed her lips but said nothing. When I was younger and I was stubborn she said I was as impossible as my cousin Sirius, but she doesn't say that anymore.

You don't send me many letters so it took some time for me to notice – why is your owl always different? Do you not have your own owl?

The teachers have given us so much reading to do over the holidays and I have six essays to write. I wanted to practice magic but we're not allowed to do ANY magic outside school until we're seventeen. Can you believe it? We've just spent a whole year learning how to do the most amazing things and now we can't practice any of them.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 27, 1985_

Dear Remus

We went to Diagon Alley for my second-year supplies today and now I have my very own broomstick! It's a Comet and it's beautiful and sleek. I can't wait to whiz all round the Hogwarts grounds. Everyone I ran into from my year were asking one other about trying out for the Quidditch team, but there's no way I'm going to. I was at the bottom of my class in flying, but I don't care if I was good or not, it was FUN.

Will you think I am boastful if I tell you I was top of all the first years in Transfiguration and Charms, and that Professor Sprout said that I was a natural at Herbology even if I spend too much time teasing the Venomous Tentacular? Professor Snake gave me an Acceptable, though he said any Potions class with me in it were in peril of their lives. Just because I knocked over a cauldron and set fire to Jasper Pillingsgood's robes that time.

Everyone did badly at Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Starkness used the previous year's exam paper, it turns out, but she'd taught us completely different things than the last teacher! I was just about the worst at Astronomy but I did well enough in History of Magic. So there you are. Not a bad set of grades for my first year, though mum and dad said there is 'a lot of room for improvement'. Parents.

Nimblin always seems excited to take letters to you. Do you give him treats?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 4, 1985_

Dear Remus

Well, here I am, back at Hogwarts. The new first-years all looked terrified during the Sorting Ceremony and I thought it was funny until I remembered how worried I was about it last year.

Over the summer I read _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection_ from cover to cover. We were only meant to read chapters three and four but once I got going I found I couldn't stop. There's such a lot of Dark magic, isn't there? It's all so gruesome, some spells needing human blood and skin and death and tears. What sort of person could invent them? It makes me angry that anyone thinks they have the right to inflict such suffering for their own gain.

In our first Charms class of the year we were taught how to cast the Wand-Lighting Charm, but I could already do that so I read ahead to the Disarming Charm. THAT sounds like a useful charm. If anyone tries to Imperius me I will deflect it back on them.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 10, 1985_

Remus!

I got your parcel. The card said 'Happy Birthday' but you know it was my birthday months and months ago. You are too sweet. I will start reading _A History of Aurors at the Ministry of Magic_ right away and tell you what I think. Inside the front cover it says 'This book belongs to Remus Lupin' and I added 'and Dora Tonks' right after. You are so generous to give me a book from your very own collection.

Thank you SO MUCH.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 21, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I am halfway through _A History of Aurors_ and it's so interesting. I didn't really know what an Auror was before, but what an exiting thing to be, a Dark wizard hunter. Do you think I could be one? Is that why you sent the book to me? It says that you have to get excellent grades to become an Auror, though, and I told you that I was only doing well in half my subjects.

I thought about asking Professor Sprout about Aurors but then I remembered that Professor McGonagall was your Head of House so I hung back after Transfiguration to speak to her. I think she was surprised that a second-year was asking about Auror training but she still took me very seriously. She said that being an Auror was a difficult career path and that I needed at least Exceeds Expectations in Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Herbology and Charms at N.E.W.T. level. After school there's a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office before they'll consider training you. Merlin's nose, that sounds hard.

Professor McGonagall asked me why I wanted to know and I showed her the book you gave me. She smiled this sad smile and said it was a great shame that you could never become an Auror yourself. What did she mean, Remus? Why couldn't you become an Auror? The way she said it, it sounded like the problem wasn't your grades, but something else. I am sure you must have had excellent grades because they made you a prefect in your fifth year and they like the prefects to be role models for the other students. (I don't need Divination to tell you that I will NEVER be a prefect, Remus.) I saw your name on the gold prefect plaque in the halls.

Do you think I could be an Auror even though I'm clumsy and I get told off for laughing and distracting other people in class? Even though I'm a Hufflepuff and not brave like a Gryffindor?

And most important of all, do you think I could ever, EVER get an E in Advanced Potions from Professor Snake?

Yours,

Dora

...

 **To me it just makes so much sense that it's a member of the Order of the Phoenix who puts the idea of becoming an Auror into Dora's head. Remus is such a natural, kind teacher to Harry when he comes to Hogwarts and he's been reading Dora's letters so carefully and has noted her aptitude and interest in the skills that Aurors need. What do you think?**


	5. Chapter 5

_November 3, 1985_

Dear Remus,

I haven't had a very good week at all. That Slytherin who called me blood traitor, Vincent Redfern, has been bullying first-year Hufflepuffs every chance he can get. I hate him, Remus. I hate him so much. At least when he picks on me there's a reason. My mother is the worst Black, you see, because Sirius was on the Death Eaters' side all along. How Redfern likes to crow about it, in between terrifying the first-years. They all go the long way round to get to their classes now which makes them late, and then they get detention.

I know what you will tell me to do but there is no point in going to Professor Sprout about Redfern because it will only be my word against his. I will not tattle so don't tell me to.

I've taken to following Redfern about and standing between him and the smaller kids. Smaller! Some of them are bigger than me, but I forget that. I would laugh if my lip didn't hurt. Madam Pomfrey healed the split but it's still tender. Redfern got annoyed with me following him about and walloped me across the face with _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2_. I blasted him with the Knockback jinx. It just happened. I couldn't help it. My lip hurt. I can't fight back with my fists because he's so much bigger than me. How tall are you, Remus? In my memory you are very tall, but everyone seems huge when you're seven. I think you are taller than Sirius so you must be over six feet. I wish I was six feet tall.

This all happened outside the greenhouse. Professor Sprout gave me detention for using magic against another student and sent me to Madam Pomfrey to get cleaned up.

I went down to the greenhouses after class and re-potted mandrake seedlings for an hour as punishment. When I finished I took off my earmuffs but I didn't see that my robes were caught under the tray of pots and I yanked them off the table. All the pots smashed on the ground and the mandrake roots started screaming. I clapped my hands over my ears just in time but Professor Sprout didn't and she collapsed. I ran to get help and a couple of fifth-years stoppered their ears and carried her up to Madam Pomfrey. A few others repotted the mandrakes quickly. I tried to help but I was crying so hard that they told me to go away.

Professor McGonagall found me on the stairs up to the hospital wing and she went up to find out what was happening. Professor Sprout is going to be all right, she said, but Remus, I could have killed her. Someone might have died because I can't keep my mind on what I'm doing.

And I keep talking about Sirius. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 5, 1985_

Dear Dora,

I would never tell you to tattle. I am not so old that I don't remember what it's like to be at school. The teachers can only do so much about boys like Redfern. Instead, I would urge you to speak to your other students. Redfern is only one but you are many. Tell people to look out for the younger children when he is around. He will soon learn the lesson that all bullies need to learn: that good people will not stand quietly by when they see wrong-doing.

Dear girl, you need never feel sorry about mentioning Sirius to me. I think about him often, too. We who loved him have to try and make sense of what happened and what we have lost.

As for the mandrakes, you are in school, Dora. You are allowed to learn and make mistakes. It is what your education is for.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _November 7, 1985_

Dear Remus,

Is that what you did when you saw people being bullied? How clever you are! I will start right away with your plan. I can tell all the Hufflepuffs and Charlie will tell all the Gryffindors. Between us we must know someone who can help in Ravenclaw, too.

THANK YOU.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 12, 1985_

Dear Dora,

It is not what I did. I wanted too much to be liked and to fit in so I didn't speak out. I admire you for not being weak as I was.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _November 15, 1985_

Dear Remus,

Did you just tell me something about yourself? I think you did. And I suppose from the shortness of your letter you think I am disappointed in you. Well I'm not. I can see that you regret not saying anything at the time and if I can be excused for nearly killing Professor Sprout because I am a student then you can be excused for something far less wicked.

I – oh, but I wasn't going to say anything. I don't want you to think I am nosy but I am so very curious, Remus. I have heard stories that there was a secret group that was formed to fight You-Know-Who. I'm not asking any questions. I'm not being nosy. That's all I will say. That I heard there was a group.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1985_

Dear Remus,

Phoebe taught me to knit last month, first by hand and then by magic. I am able to do rectangular things so far, so here is a scarf for you. Is it in too many colours? It was meant to be just red and yellow, for Gryffindor, but then I added black so there would be Hufflepuff colours too, but it looked too sombre so I added white and pink … and well, you see what happened. Is the purple too much? What about the silver? Oh dear.

Merry Christmas!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1985_

Dear Dora,

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Someone who is doing as well in Herbology as you will need no instructions.

Yours,

Remus

...

December 27, 1985

Dear Remus,

I think our owls must have crossed in the air! What a lovely thought. I wanted to send you a thank you letter straight away but Nimblin was sitting on the stove, ruffling his feathers and GLARING at me so I didn't dare ask him to go back out in the cold.

But what did you send me? It looks like a seed. Hmm, Herbology. When I get back to school I shall plant it and see what grows.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 1, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Where did January go? I woke up this morning and realised that I didn't send you a letter the whole month. It's grey, grey, grey outside. I would rather it storm or snow or blow a gale than just be grey and still.

The seed you gave me has grown into a healthy little seedling. It's in a pot on the windowsill closest to my bed. I did worry that it wouldn't do well inside, or that it was the wrong time of year to plant it, but I thought that you wouldn't have given me a seed at Christmas if it wasn't meant to go into the ground right away. I thought I had identified it as sea lavender, but when I took it down to Professor Sprout she said it looked more like a rabbit orchid. Now it doesn't look like either. I think it's changed. You've sent me a challenge, haven't you?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 24, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Charlie tells me you went to see his father recently! I know you knew the Weasleys but I didn't know they were friends of yours. Aren't they great fun? Well, Charlie is, and I like his brother Bill too. What were you doing there? Are you close?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 2, 1985_

Dear Dora,

Your determination to find out things about me is wearing a little thin. What I was doing at the Weasleys is my business. You should be looking to your schoolwork with exams coming up in June.

Yours,

Remus


	6. Chapter 6

**In this chapter Dora turns thirteen and (still unbeknownst to Dora) Remus turns twenty-six.**

...

 _March 5, 1986_

Dear Remus,

I am sorry. I know I am nosy. I am thinking about my exams, I promise. I just got over-excited that someone I knew had a father who knew you. You don't seem real to me sometimes. You're a vague idea of a man I once saw years and years ago and a letter that I get a few times a year. Oh, and you're a plant, now, too, that sits on my windowsill. When Charlie said your name it was wonderful because you seemed flesh and blood all of a sudden, and it was like I could sense you through him.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 20, 1986_

Dear Dora,

I'm sorry for my last letter. I was too short with you. Mr Weasley is a friend but it wasn't a friendly visit. He was putting some work my way.

I never said thank you for my Christmas present. It's very warm and Mrs Weasley said it brightened me up no end.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _April 23, 1986_

Dear Remus,

I've been putting in extra hours in my worst subjects – you know, Potions and Astronomy. I didn't do well on my last Defence Against the Dark Arts exam either, but then nobody did. This year I got Os and Es on all my essays in that class so I think I'll get a good final grade.

Professor Sprout forgave me for the mandrake root incident. She was really nice about it and said what you said – that the younger students always make mistakes and she knows it was an accident I'll learn from. I have been trying really REALLY hard not to be clumsy. It's worse when I'm nervous or upset. I ruined a whole batch of hair-raising potion yesterday when I dropped my wand into it. My WAND, Remus! Snake was hovering over me at the time and I swear I saw him smirk as it went in.

Redfern has stopped bullying the first-years for now because anyone who's decent won't let him touch them. I don't think that's fixed him forever, though. You should see the looks he gives me. If you could cast a killing curse with your eyes I'd be in big trouble.

Remus (the plant) is looking like a squirting foxglove today, but yesterday he looked like an opal pansy. He is a very tricksy plant.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 3, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Plant Remus has blossomed! And on my birthday! Did you do that on purpose? I think you must have. It's got THIRTEEN different types of flower on it, one for each year old I am. There's a scarlet rockinghorse flower, a rabbit orchid, an opal pansy, a sprig of sea lavender and a squirting foxglove. Professor Sprout said she could identify five more but that I would have to work them out for myself, along with the three she didn't recognise. If I do it by the end of the school year she's promised me twenty points for Hufflepuff! Phoebe is going to help me research them on Sunday when we've finished our homework. We're going to go all over the greenhouses with our Herbology books.

Professor Sprout taught me to cast a preserving charm on the flowers so they will bloom for a few extra weeks, and then I'm going to press them in _A History of Aurors_ so they last a very long time. She says she's never seen anything like the Remus plant in all her years of Herbology and that she always knew you were very clever wizard but you never put such effort in in her classes! (I didn't ask what you were like, I promise. She just told me.)

Mum and dad sent me a quill charm for my bracelet, and another heavy cake. Nimblin bit my finger.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 4, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Summer! Isn't it just beautiful? I know it's beautiful where you are because you're in Yorkshire and my house in Lancashire isn't very far away. I went for a long tramp across the fields yesterday and the lambs were very fat and the sun was hot. All the hedgerows were stuffed with flowers. This muggle system for having paths and stiles everywhere for walking is so useful to an underage witch, though I did fall from a stile into a patch of stinging nettles because I was distracted by a robin. Dock leaves don't work nearly as well as the Episkey charm but I couldn't cast that on the stings of course.

I wish I could invite you for tea. Mum hasn't said anything against you but she purses her lips whenever I talk about you. I suppose it's just that she wants me to have friends my own age. I DO have friends my own age. Phoebe and Charlie! In fact, Phoebe and I have both been invited down to the Burrow for an Exam Results Tea in two weeks' time. The three of us and Bill and will get our results together. Charlie says the Hogwarts owls will be able to find us there no problem.

When I'm grown up and I have my own house I will invite you for tea. What is your house in Yorkshire like and do you have a big garden with lots of flowers?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 10, 1986_

Dear Dora,

My cottage is a humble stone affair with a big overgrown garden and a well with the coldest water you ever tasted. Out the back gate there is a large woods that I go walking in every day, and it is dark and humid this time of year. They are very lonely, too, as are the moors beyond. Wild ponies sometimes walk by, but no one else.

Professor Sprout is right that I was never a particularly dedicated Herbology student, but in recent years I've discovered how soothing it is to work with the soil. I grow magical flowers and herbs, and muggle ones too. Rosemary goes so well with red meat.

It's very amusing that you called your birthday present the Remus plant, because I call it the Dora plant. It can be so many different things, just like you, little Metamorphmagus.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _August 10, 1986_

Dear Remus,

I just got back from the Burrow and the Exam Results Tea. Remus, I had such a lovely time! The Weasleys are the nicest, nicest people I have ever met. Mrs Weasley gave me a hug right off, and Arthur Weasley shook my hand and said that Charlie talked about me and Phoebe all the time. We had SUCH a tea, with cake and jelly and so many sandwiches. I thought we'd never get through it all but we did. Bill kept jumping out of his chair and running to the window to look for the Hogwarts owls. He's going to be in fifth-year this September and doing his O.W.L.s so he was probably the most worried of all of us about his results. Finally the owls came and there was lots of excitement and tearing of envelopes.

Remus, I got FOUR Outstandings and the rest were all Exceeds Expectations! Except Potions. I got an Acceptable in Potions. Mr Weasley saw that I was upset even though I did better than Charlie (five Es and two As) and got one more Outstanding than Bill (three Os and six Es) and asked me what was wrong. I wanted to tell him how important Potions is if I am to be an Auror, but I was too shy. He works at the Ministry, you see, and probably knows real Aurors. What if he laughed at me?

Phoebe got all Es, even in Potions. She told me I should be thrilled with my results but all I can see is that nasty A inked on the parchment.

After we'd all talked out our results, the eight-year-old twins Fred and George challenged me, Charlie and Phoebe to a game of Quidditch in the back yard. Six-year-old Ronald joined the twins to make the sides even, but he burst into tears when he let a goal through and the twins called him useless. I asked Ronald what his favourite animal was and he said a terrier, so I grew a little pair of ears and a tail and he was so impressed he stopped crying. Ten-year-old Percy refereed. He got very cross with me when he said I had fouled and I poked my tongue out at him. Charlie, Phoebe and I lost the game. I kept falling off my broomstick.

Five-year-old Ginny was the sweetest, most well-behaved little girl I have ever seen, though I suspect she can be a scrapper when she needs to be. She asked me all about school and said she couldn't wait to go. It will be hard for her, seeing all her brothers head off before her. I think Mrs Weasley might be secretly pleased she's got a little girl for her youngest, though. It will be just the two of them for a whole year when Ron's gone.

Mrs Weasley asked me how I knew you (she remembered your scarf) and I couldn't help but turn bright red. I didn't want to talk about you because I know you like your privacy. I sort of muttered this and she understood immediately. I think you must be private with everyone and that's just the way you are.

Thank you so much for your last letter describing your cottage and the countryside. I would chew my arm off if I lived in such a lonely spot but I think it must suit you very well. Besides, if you ever want to be around people you can simply Apparate anywhere in the country. Except Hogwarts of course.

Oh! That's a thought. I'm a third-year this September and mum will be signing my Hogsmeade form. Perhaps you could come one Saturday? A lot of the teachers go and I'm sure they would like to say hello to you. I would, too.

Yours,

Dora

...

 **I just loved imagining all the Weasleys when they were so young! Ron fans will know that a terrier happens to be his Patronus, but he doesn't know it yet of course. After I wrote this chapter I realised I may have got the date of the exam results a little late, and I have a feeling the younger students might get their results at school, not by owl. Please forgive me if that's the case!**


	7. Chapter 7

_August 12, 1986_

Dear Dora,

Congratulations on your splendid results. They are very well deserved. I know how hard you have to work to get one Outstanding, let alone four. Let me guess – they were for Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts?

Mr Weasley would never laugh at you for wanting to become an Auror. He would be an excellent person to speak to about it next time you see him.

Honeydukes Dark Chocolate is my favourite chocolate, and I've enclosed a bar. I am sure you know which Dark creature chocolate is an antidote for?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _August 13, 1986_

Dear Remus,

You guessed the subjects right! And I didn't even have to look it up – you should eat chocolate after being in the presence of a Dementor. Or just because. I ate it just because.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 12, 1986_

Dear Remus,

When I started back for the new school year I thought things were going to be easier. I'm not new anymore, the castle feels like my second home and I have friends. Not just Charlie and Phoebe, but lots of other third-years as well, from all the houses. Except Slytherin. I don't say they're all as mean as Snake and Redfern, but they can be quite haughty and I just can't seem to warm to any. Petra Gargonelle wouldn't share a book with me in the library the other day because she was 'using' it. It was sitting by her elbow, closed! And it was the only copy. I watched her for hours while I tried to write my essay, fuming, and she finally opened it, once, for five minutes, and then WALKED PAST ME to reshelve it.

But third-year is not easy, Remus. In fact it's much harder. Our teachers seem to think we've been indulged with easy lessons and minimal homework. EASY LESSONS? MINIMAL HOMEWORK? Are they mad?

Phoebe and I had a bet going about how many of our professors were going to mention the O.W.L.s in our first lessons. Phoebe said seven. I said all nine. I won half a galleon. We don't have to sit them until fifth-year but apparently it's 'never too early' to be thinking about them.

As well as all the usual subjects I'm taking Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies. Charlie is in Care of Magical Creatures with me! It's wonderful to have a class with him again. He's brilliant at it. He can already identify all the species of dragon just by their silhouettes.

I should go. I have a mountain of reading to do.

Stressfully yours,

Dora

...

 _October 5, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Third-year is not getting any easier. I've had a terrible week. In Defence Against the Dark Arts we learned how to banish a Boggart, and the professor brought in an actual Boggart for us to practice on. It was my very first encounter with proper Dark magic and I was so excited to put all the theory I'd learned into practice.

I was so excited, in fact, that I forgot that the Boggart would turn into something that would actually frighten me. Oh, Remus. It was awful. When it was my turn and he opened the chest, my Aunt Bellatrix stepped out. I couldn't breathe. She looked at me with so much hate and coldness in her eyes, and then lifted her wand and screamed, 'Crucio!' I cried out and crossed my arms in front of my face, certain that the curse was really going to hit me. When I looked up a few minutes later she was gone, I was sobbing and my hair had turned white. I wasn't the only one who couldn't do it, but I was the only one who cried.

Being an Auror isn't really about good grades, it's about facing Dark magic and Dark beings without flinching. I flinched.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _October 6, 1986_

Dear Dora,

I saw Bellatrix Lestrange just before she was imprisoned in Azkaban, and a colder, more zealous and remorseless person I have never encountered. She more than any other Death Eater was unable to accept that Lord Voldemort was gone, and it was this disbelief that led her to torture the Longbottoms into madness. As two of the ministry's best Aurors I believe she thought they were somehow responsible for his disappearance, or at least knew where he was.

I was at a loose end in those days and I attended many Death Eater trials, including hers. I think I needed to reassure myself that it was really over, and that those responsible for the deaths of so many were being held accountable.

Bellatrix sat upon her chair in chains as if it were a throne. It was an impressive, terrible sight. How proudly she proclaimed her loyalty to the Dark Lord, even as so many others were scrambling to distance themselves from him. Her own sister, Narcissa Malfoy, and Narcissa's husband, Lucius, claimed to have been under the Imperius curse and were not really Death Eaters. It's true that Narcissa does not bear the Dark Mark. Bellatrix sneered when asked about the Malfoys by the Minister, and whether she had suffered from an Imperius curse too.

You are very sensible to be frightened of a witch like Bellatrix Lestrange, but I think your fear is more complex than you realise. I think you fear not her, but the Black blood that runs in both of your veins, and the Black connection with Slytherin house. That connection frightens you. Perhaps Slytherins and Death Eaters are even one and the same in your mind.

I remember your very first letter in which you were so afraid you would be Sorted into Slytherin, and another letter in which you mentioned that Sirius betrayed James and Lily Potter despite being in Gryffindor. You have realised that simply being in Hufflepuff is not enough to preclude you from the temptations of Dark magic. It's not Bellatrix you fear, but your own potential for evil.

Personally I've always thought that Bellatrix Lestrange would be improved by giving her a motherly Babbity Rabbity appearance, perhaps with the addition of a rabbit's front teeth and furry ears.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 10, 1986_

Dear Remus,

Reading your letter was like being hit with the Knockback jinx. My own potential for evil. I think you're right. I never thought about it that way before. You believe, then, that anyone might do evil things?

After I had thought about it for a while I went to see my Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and asked if I could try banishing the Boggart again. He said yes, I took a deep breath, and he opened the chest. Out stepped Bellatrix. She cackled and reached for her wand. I thought hard. I pictured it in my mind. I said, ' _Riddikulus!_ ' And suddenly she was Babbity Rabbity, half changed into a rabbit. She even hopped about.

Do you think the court made the right decision in letting the Malfoys go free? I suppose if anyone is capable of evil, then anyone is capable of good. Even a Malfoy.

Thank you, Remus. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _October 18, 1986_

Dear Dora,

I think the courts did the best they could with the Malfoys on the evidence they were given. So many people up and down the country had been Imperiused, though the Malfoys were the only pure-blood family to claim such a thing. For now they're abiding by Wizarding Law and if they continue to do so I believe we can say the courts made the right decision.

They love their son Draco very much, I hear, and when the time comes for him to begin at Hogwarts I am sure that Dumbledore will keep a close eye on him. He will start the same year as Harry Potter. I would like to be a bowtruckle in the tree those two boys meet.

Well done with the Boggart.

Yours,

Remus

...

 **Coming up with something to make a Bellatrix Lestrange Boggart into something funny was really quite challenging! Babbity Rabbity is in _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , and she's a very bosomy old woman who can transform into a rabbit.**

 **It's so lovely getting all your reviews and comments! I'm glad Remus is writing back properly now, too, he's so much fun to write. Let me know what you think of today's chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8

**In this chapter Dora turns fourteen and Remus (STILL unbeknownst to Dora!) turns twenty-seven. This girl really needs to ask Remus when his birthday is, doesn't she? But then, he is very good at dodging her questions ...**

..

 _November 12, 1987_

Dear Remus,

I've settled into third-year now and it's not quite so terror-inducing as it has been. I'm getting used to juggling the work for nine subjects instead of seven, though I'm not worried about whether I'll be good enough for Auror training any more as I can't see past next week's Potions class.

Hogsmeade is such a beautiful little village. Phoebe, Charlie and I have been going down every chance we can, but that might stop toward exam time.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1987_

 _Dear Remus,_

There is such a lot of snow this year! I hope your well hasn't frozen solid, but I'm sure you know a thawing charm to fix it right up if you do. Where do the ponies go, I wonder, when the winters are hard?

Here is a box of my very favourite sweets from Honeydukes. Do these bring back memories? Nougat, coconut ice, toffees, sherbet balls, stringmints, ice mice, peppermint creams and sugar-spun quills. There are no joke sweets, I promise! Nothing will explode in your mouth or make you blow bubbles for days.

Merry Christmas!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1987_

Dear Dora,

As the weather is so bitter I have been inventing tea blends. They're made from the stock of dried herbs I laid away this summer and these are my best three. The first is called Toe-tea-l Tingle and will warm up frozen toes and fingers – best consumed after a visit to Hogsmeade. The second is called Recollectea and will be an excellent aid for exam revision. And the last, Unobscuritea, helps the drinker to see in the dark.

Merry Christmas,

Remus

...

 _December 27, 1987_

Remus, you are funny! How long did it take you to think up those names? I hope it was a very, very long time as I like to picture you sitting seriously over something so silly. I tried the Unobscuritea right away and I can tell you that it gives you better night vision than a cat. I know because I have been practising becoming a cat and it's my very first successful full morph. Just sometimes I revert and I still have whiskers and the urge to walk on all fours. Mum's been asking me to clean my room and I turn into a cat and swish my tail at her in a way that says, 'Sorry, I can't, I'm a cat.'

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 17, 1988_

Dear Remus,

Potions! Potions class in that freezing dungeon, could there ever be anything more miserable and cold? Phoebe and I have big mugfuls of Toe-tea-l Tingle back in our common room after and it warms up right up.

Everyone's been handing round copies of _To Love a Muggle_ , the romance novel by Benedictia Hearthsworn. Doesn't that name sound made up? I bet it's a quill-name. Here's a passage for you as I doubt such towering works of literary genius have made it into your reading pile:

 _Their eyes met across the mundane boxes of thin paper and jars of food sauce, but his eyes were anything but mundane. They were like twin stars burning in a winter sky, and as they scoured her face she felt herself lit as if by a cauldron flame. The pure blood beat fast in her veins – she wanted him._

We've discussed it in Muggle Studies, at length. I think Professor Burbage is a secret romance novel addict and it's easy to prod her into talking about it. Apparently most of the muggle references are incorrect (food sauce?) but Remus, it's toooooo good! I find myself laughing at it and unable to put it down at the same time. The hero is called Smith Johnson, which is apparently a very muggle name.

I read in the Prophet that Lucius Malfoy has tried to have it banned, but that's only made it even more popular!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 8, 1987_

Dear Remus,

Did you see that fawning piece by Rita Skeeter about the Malfoys in the _Prophet_? 'Sitting in his gracious living room, the ethereal beauty Lucius Malfoy frowns, his features becoming stern. "I worry, Rita, about the safety of our kind in times such as these. Muggles should be treated with distant respect, not frivolity. Tawdry novels like _To Love a Muggle_ are more damaging than people realise." Narcissa Malfoy nods in agreement and takes her husband's hand. The affection between them is touching, and deep understanding passes between them that can only exist, they tell me, in a pure-blood match. Little Draco, eight years old, looks up from the rug, smiling adoringly at them.'

I want to stab myself in the eye with my wand. They way they talk you would think that muggles are a different species. Here's a copy of the full article so you can rage over it as much as I have. What is the _Prophet_ thinking?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 20, 1987_

Dear Dora,

Molly Weasley lent me her copy of _To Love A Muggle_ last week and I spent a very entertaining evening reading it, though I'm a little troubled at the thought of certain chapters being passed around at a school.

The _Prophet_ likes to be controversial. It sells more copies that way. If people are feeling more tolerant of muggles they will print a piece expounding the opposite view. During the war when some people were wondering of the Death Eaters had the right idea they dug through the family trees of proclaimed pure-bloods in search of secret muggles and half-bloods.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _March 5, 1987_

Dear Remus,

Did they really? I want to say I hope they found some, but I also want to believe that it's irresponsible of the _Prophet_ to act like they are now, whipping up anti-muggle sentiment and blathering on about understandings that can only pass between two people who are in a pure-blood match. So stupid.

Oh, _those_ chapters, Remus. Well, how else are we supposed to learn? It was very edifying.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 3, 1987_

Dear Dora,

My mother was a great reader and my earliest memories are sitting with her while she read aloud to me from her favourite books. The book section in Flourish & Blotts was her favourite place in the world. She couldn't see the entrance to Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron because she was a muggle, but I could, so she would hold my hand as I led her in. She was quite brave about walking into a solid wall as long as she had her eyes closed, though it made her laugh every time. The other witches and wizards didn't mind a muggle shopping in Diagon Alley and even looked out for her, to make sure we didn't accidentally wander into Knockturn Alley.

Our world fascinated her and after she married my father almost all the books she read were by magical authors. She wanted to know everything there was to know about witches and wizards. This is her copy of her favourite book, _Raoul de Veritas_ , about the life of a medieval Animagus. It's an adventure story and a love story, and one of my favourites too.

Happy birthday.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _May 4, 1987_

Dear Remus,

I can't believe you gave me your mother's own copy of her favourite book. Isn't this too precious to give away? I will keep it safe always and if ever you want to look at it or just hold it you can ask. Thank you so much, I will start reading it right away!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 14, 1987_

Nymphadora,

We have never met but I am your Aunt Narcissa. Narcissa Malfoy. Perhaps your mother has spoken of me. Or perhaps not, as we never speak of her. Either way I am sure you know who I am.

Some very worrying news has reached me from your school. It seems you are in correspondence with a wizard called Remus Lupin. He even sends you little presents. What can you mother be thinking by allowing this? He is much older than you and greatly beneath you in blood and status – yes, even taking into account your father's family – but worse is the fact of what he is. Someone like you should not be associating with something like him.

As you are so young I can't imagine this acquaintance you have with Lupin is anything unseemly, but even so, I am alarmed. You are a Black, Nymphadora. I would ask you not to drag the family name even lower.

Regards,

N. Malfoy

...

 **It amuses me NO END to think about a tawdy romance written about a pure-blood witch and a muggle man, and women like Molly Weasley getting flustered reading it while Lucius Malfoy tries to have it banned!**


	9. Chapter 9

_May 15, 1987_

Dear Aunt Narcissa,

What are you talking about? Do not call Remus a thing. He is a very fine person and he is my friend. What right do you have to ignore me your whole life and then tell me who I can and can't write to?

Dora

...

 _May 17, 1987_

Nymphadora,

I suspected as much. He has not told you. Ask him what I mean. That will probably do the trick, I imagine.

N. Malfoy

...

 _May 22, 1987_

Dear Remus,

I didn't know whether to write to you about this but I can't stop thinking about it. Someone has been gossiping to my Aunt Narcissa about the fact that we write to each other. It must be a Slytherin. It could be any of them. They all know each other as they are all so in-bred.

Narcissa wrote to me and was very rude about you. She called you a thing. She insulted your family and background and then mine as well. Nothing new there. But what puzzled me was that she implied there's something that she knows about you that you haven't told me.

I know how you value your privacy, but it doesn't seem right that she should know more about you than I do.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _June 9, 1987_

Oh, Remus, please do not do this again. I am fourteen now. I'm not a child. Whatever you are and whatever you have done, do you think I care? If you were a member of a secret group who fought the against Death Eaters do you think that would matter one crumb to me? I would be PROUD of you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 27, 1987_

Fine. Don't tell me and don't write back. Ignore me like I mean nothing to you. Like we were never friends. I hope you get blasted by Stinksap. Have a lovely summer.

Dora

...

 _September 3, 1987_

Dear Dora,

It was a terrible summer. You are still a child. How did you do in your exams?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 4, 1987_

Dear Remus,

GOOD

Dora

...

 _September 7, 1987_

Dear Dora,

Was that good for your exam results or for my terrible summer?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 8, 1987_

Dear Remus,

GUESS.

Dora

...

 _September 10, 1987_

Dear Dora,

You do make me smile. Here, have some chocolate. It's very good for improving the mood.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 11, 1987_

CHOCOLATE, REMUS? I NEARLY HURLED IT AT THE OWL. YOU ARE A TOAD AND A WORM AND HOW DARE YOU DO WHAT SOMEONE LIKE NARCISSA MALFOY TELLS YOU TO DO.

YES, I HAVE LEARNED HOW TO SEND A HOWLER JUST FOR YOU. AREN'T YOU PROUD THAT YOU ARE STILL FURTHERING MY EDUCATION.

HAVE YOUR SECRETS, AND I'LL HAVE MINE.

NOT YOURS,

DORA

...

 _December 15, 1987_

Dear Dora,

It's Mrs Weasley here, Charlie's mother. I know I'm butting in where I'm not wanted, so please don't be angry with me, but I saw Remus the other day and he looked even worse than usual. There was a dreadful tear in his trousers and I wish he'd let me cut his hair.

I know the two of you used to write to each other and talk about school. He was quite proud of you, I think, because you're good at a lot of the things he's interested in and I think he liked helping you.

He's got so few friends, you know, since the war, and young men can be so stubborn. I'm not saying he was right ignoring you all summer. There's no excusing it. But if he writes to you again and apologises for his behaviour, will you think about writing back? Don't tell him about this letter. I've got five boys and I know how their pride can be, silly creatures that they are.

You're always welcome at the Burrow, dear. Ginny's been asking me if she can dye her hair purple. I'll tell Charlie to invite you at Easter. Have a lovely Christmas.

Yours affectionately,

Molly

...

 _December 17, 1987_

Dear Mrs Weasley,

Hearing you lump Remus in with your boys did make me laugh. He's so lofty sometimes, acting like he's a hundred years old and I'm about five.

There are so many things that I suspect he has done, dangerous, terrible things during the war. He's been through some difficult times, I think, but he won't tell me about them.

My horrible Aunt Narcissa, married to Lucius Malfoy, wrote and told me to break off my friendship with him because of something I don't know about. I guess I knew it would upset him if I asked about it but it's galling knowing that NARCISSA MALFOY knows more about my friend than I do.

I miss talking to him so much. You're right, he has helped me. There are things I can tell him that I don't think Charlie or Phoebe would understand. It's the Sirius stuff, you see? The Bellatrix stuff. The Black stuff. I wish he would return my trust.

It's no wonder he has so few friends if he can be such an ass. No, that's unfair. He couldn't help losing James and Sirius.

I'm jealous that you have seen him and know that his hair is too long and his trousers have a tear. I haven't seen him since I was seven.

Merry Christmas to you and the family.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 27, 1987_

Dear Dora,

I don't know why I was sorted into Gryffindor. I was certain that it was going to be Ravenclaw for me, as I am more bookish than brave. I've always gravitated toward brave people, though, and admired them, so perhaps the Sorting Hat sensed that and put me with the people who would make me happiest.

I usually spend my Christmases working, if I can. If I'm not, I go home to my father and we have a quiet meal.

I did see the Hufflepuff common room. I saw all the common rooms, but don't tell McGonagall or she'll show up and give me detention. The Gryffindor common room is like your favourite grandfather who is regal but who gives you chocolate frogs when your mother isn't looking.

I don't have a girlfriend. I do whatever work comes my way, usually for wizards and witches but sometimes for muggles.

I have been in two secret groups, but I am in none now. My Patronus is a very large, very proud creature. He's very beautiful too, though he is frightening.

I don't have an owl. I don't send enough letters to make it worthwhile keeping one. Nimblin gets fresh raw meat when he delivers your letters to me.

I had the grades to become an Auror, but as you're already finding out it's not just grades that matter. I think you could make a very excellent Auror, and I even think you could get an O in Potions.

Hufflepuffs might be the bravest of all the houses because you have to be brave to be kind and even braver to be loyal when there are so many people who will misuse your kindness and loyalty.

I am six feet two inches tall. My feet are too big. My sleeves are usually too short.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _December 30, 1987_

Dear Remus,

Did you go back through all my letters and answer all my unanswered questions? I am infuriated and I am touched. Why couldn't you have just answered them the first time around? No, don't answer that.

Thank you, Remus. And thank you for keeping my letters all this time. All yours are in a chocolate box under my bed at school. A Honeydukes box, of course.

Yours,

Dora

...

 **These two. Even though it's platonic right now, I just ... sigh. My heart.**

 **Who has done the Sorting Hat and Patronus quizzes on Pottermore? I'm in Gryffindor and my Patronus is a red squirrel. (It's perfect, I've trained all the squirrels in the garden to come up to my balcony and they eat out of my hand. One even lets me give it a pat now and then.)**

 **Comment with your house and Patronus, I'd love to know!**


	10. Chapter 10

**In this chapter Dora turns fifteen and Remus turns twenty-eight. And yes, Dora finally finds out when his birthday is!**

...

 _January 4, 1988_

Dear Dora,

Will you tell me about your summer and your grades, and how you're finding fourth year, and what your Christmas was like? Did Hagrid bring Christmas trees into the hall? Did Dumbledore tie a bell to his beard so he resembled a tall, grey Christmas ornament?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _January 8, 1988_

Dear Remus,

All those things happened, and I will tell you about them.

I got another A in Potions. I don't know who is more stubborn, me or Snape. I spent my summer reading and walking and not really talking to anyone. My hair was blue-grey for weeks. I hate that colour. My mother says it's my age. I don't know what she means by that but it annoys me.

Hagrid was so excited for Christmas and the trees he chose were thick with needles and taller than he is. Phoebe talked about the mistletoe non-stop from November as she hoped Bill Weasley would kiss her under it. She's been in love with him since the summer before, but he's two years older than us and doesn't think about her like that. A boy called Singh did kiss her, though, and she hasn't talked about Bill since. Before we left on the Hogwarts Express the hall was looking so pretty and sparkling white for those who were staying behind. Dumbledore jingled with every step.

It's January, Remus, and I know you will be having a birthday at some point this year. When is it? I've never wished you a happy birthday.

Why was your summer so terrible?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 15, 1988_

Dear Dora,

My summer was terrible because I had a goal, one that filled me with hope, but it wasn't to be. I will keep trying but I won't deny it has been a blow.

My birthday is March 10 and I shall be twenty-eight. Do you know, I have grey hairs already. My joints ache when it rains. I am an old man, Dora.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _March 10, 1988_

Dear Remus,

Happy birthday to such a very old man who is all of twenty-eight. Look, I can knit round things now! These socks will keep your feet warm when you go walking in the woods and no one could feel old in a pair of purple and silver socks, gold and green socks and blue and orange socks. Don't the colours clash beautifully?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 12, 1988_

Dear Dora,

Thank you for the birthday present. I feel like a new man. I went walking and tucked my trousers into the socks so as to show them off to their best advantage. The moor ponies looked upon me with envy.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _April 27, 1988_

Dear Remus,

I spent the Easter with the Weasleys and it was great fun. What a lot of noise all those people make! You are an only child too so I'm sure you can understand how unsettling all the clamour and squabbling is.

Charlie asked Mrs Weasley where you were, and she looked taken aback for a moment like she was surprised he was asking, but then said you had to work and couldn't be there. I didn't know you had plans to visit the Weasleys at Easter! It was so disappointing to know that I might have finally seen you again. Well, MET you. I don't feel like that time in Diagon Alley when I was seven really counts.

Exams begin soon. I will get an E in Potions this year. I will get an E in Potions this year. I will get an E in Potions this year.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 4, 1988_

Dear Remus,

I had the most strange, wonderful and exciting birthday anyone has ever had. Professor Sprout came and found me and told me to go to the headmaster's office at a quarter to six, and to bring my travelling cloak. She wouldn't tell me why but I could only suppose that my mother and father were coming to take me somewhere for my fifteenth birthday.

But when I presented myself to Professor Dumbledore it wasn't my parents who were in his office, but a stranger. And what a stranger he was! A big bear of a man with a false eye strapped to his face and a wooden leg. Dumbledore said his name was Alastor Moody.

Well, I just stared at him. I couldn't help it. It wasn't because of how he looks, it was because he's the most famous Auror alive today. Half the Death Eaters in Azkaban are there because of him.

Finally I pulled myself together and shook his hand and said what an honour it was to meet him. It still hadn't sunk in that he was there to see me when he was bustling me over to a portkey and telling Dumbledore that he'd have me back by eleven. Then _whoosh_ , off we went! We reappeared in Diagon Alley, right outside the Leaky Cauldron. It was packed full of people when we went inside, all drinking butterbeer and firewhisky, but we didn't stop in the bar. Mr Moody took me upstairs and showed me into a large room with a table set for dinner. There were other people there, Arthur Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and a large, dark man I didn't recognise. And a tall young man with too-long hair with just a little grey, a greeny-brown tweed jacket and tie, and a small, neat moustache. He was standing at the back of the room with his hands deep in his pockets, looking uncertain but also a little bit pleased. I forgot about everyone else, ran to him and gave him the biggest hug I've ever given anyone.

Remus, why didn't you tell me you were going to be there? I suppose it was a surprise. Well, I was very surprised, and so happy! You _are_ real, and you are just how I remember you, or at least how I see you when I read your letters. It's all got so muddled in my mind over the years. But I knew you instantly. Did I look like how you pictured me or was I a stranger?

Everyone was looking at my hair because it had gone the brightest shade of pink it's ever been. I couldn't stop grinning and I don't remember saying hello to anyone else, but I think I must have as then we were all sitting around the table and Mr Moody was talking.

'Tonks, I think you've heard of Aurors. We only take the brightest young witches and wizards with a knack for spotting and battling Dark magic. I keep an ear out for those coming up through Hogwarts who show potential, and you were singled out to me.'

Professor McGonagall smiled at me, and I guessed it was her who told Mr Moody about me. 'You also have a unique ability that would serve an Auror well while undertaking secretive or stealth work,' she said, and I guess she meant me being a Metamorphmagus.

How wonderful, Remus! I could barely eat thinking about how all these very important people had gathered for my birthday. Mr Weasley gave me such an interesting account of how the Ministry of Magic works and where the Auror Office sits within it. Mr Shacklebolt told me all about his training and the things I could expect after school.

Mr Moody cut across the chatter when our plates had been cleared away. 'There's something else, Tonks. Have you ever heard of the Order of the Phoenix?' There was this electric silence around the table and I suddenly knew why.

'It was a secret group who fought You-Know-Who,' I said, and Mr Moody's mouth fell open. 'Were you all members?' And I looked at you and I'm sure you were trying to hide your smile in your pint. Were you proud of me for guessing?

'Some of us, dear,' McGonagall said, faintly. 'Not Mr Shacklebolt. He was still being trained. And not Mr Weasley, though his brothers were.'

I listened to Mr Moody tell me about how, under Dumbledore, the Order recruited Aurors and others to resist You-Know-Who, and it was strange but I felt like I was hearing a familiar song that I had loved as a child.

'It's not active now, but if someone like You-Know-Who ever rises again it will reform. It's something to think about. You should know that Aurors in the Order did not have a very long life expectancy.'

He took out a photograph of the Order of the Phoenix and started to show it to me, though you tried to stop him. 'Come on, Mad-Eye, don't show her that. It's her birthday.'

But he brushed you off. I didn't understand what you meant until I realised just about every person in that photograph was dead. I'm so sorry, Remus. I know you lost people during the war but I had no idea it was so many.

I'm glad he showed me the picture. I should know what I will be facing if I choose this path, and besides many Aurors have died while on missions even without being in the Order.

We had cake, and then before I knew it it was ten minutes to eleven and Professor McGonagall was saying she had to take me back to school. I wish I'd been able to talk to you, just you, or at least give you a proper goodbye. But thank you for wishing me happy birthday and THANK YOU for being there.

I've got so much to think about, but I promise I'm not afraid of becoming an Auror, or one day joining the Order of the Phoenix if they need me. Really I'm afraid that I might let all these people down by failing my O.W.L.s or not being made of the right stuff (what would that Boggart look like?) But I'm more resolved than ever that being an Auror is the right thing for me. Thank you for giving me _A History of Aurors at the Ministry of Magic_ all those years ago. I think you knew this was what I'd be good at even then.

Will you tell me about the Order and how you came to be in it? It's not still a secret, is it?

Yours,

Dora

...

 **They have met. This makes me so happy!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Snape's cameo in this chapter is dedicated to Nine Bright Shiners! Go check out her wonderful Snape story, _Snape's Advocate_.**

 **And thank you so much to people who are reviewing, the regular reviews and the occasional reviewers! You make me smile so much.**

...

 _May 9, 1988_

Dear Dora,

I'm delighted you had such a good birthday and I was glad to be there for you.

I will tell you about how I came to be in the Order of the Phoenix, but before I do I'll have to go back even further, to my time at Hogwarts and the first secret group I was in.

I was not a happy child and I didn't expect to adjust easily to life at school. But to my surprise I quickly made two close friends, Sirius Black and James Potter. There was another boy called Peter Pettigrew whom I liked and I brought him into the group. The four of us were soon inseparable and I was happy for the first time in my life, really happy. We called ourselves the Marauders and together I think we caused more mischief at Hogwarts than everyone else combined. We were interested in what magic could do for us and we divined ways to explore the castle and grounds at night and found secret passages to Hogsmeade. No one else to this day knows Hogwarts like we did, I expect. Not even Dumbledore. And no, I'm not going to tell you any of our secrets, little Metamorphmagus. The map we created was confiscated by Filch before we graduated, and a good thing, too.

After school ended the talk was all of Lord Voldemort and we went to Dumbledore and told him we wanted to fight. Normally that would mean becoming an Auror. James could have been one, but he was impatient at the thought of more training. Sirius didn't have the grades or the temperament for a Ministry job. Peter was more of a follower and didn't want to branch out on his own. And I had my own reasons for not applying.

Dumbledore knew about our secret group because of our confiscated map. He needed fighters and thought we could channel our mischievous energy into a good purpose for a change. The Order had been going for several years by then and we were welcomed as members.

The first two years were brutal, but we were fighting together – not just against witches and wizards, but all manner of Dark creatures. We were good at it. We were very good at it. We stayed alive while so many around us fell.

But by the start of 1981 things started to change. Lily and James Potter had a baby son, and someone started to tell the others that I couldn't be trusted and that I was a spy for Lord Voldemort. I worked out later that it must have been Sirius. I was shut out of the Order. I didn't understand how they could turn on me like that without even letting me defend myself. I had risked my life for these people. After James and Lily were killed they realised that Sirius had been seeking to deflect suspicion about his own duplicity onto me.

I went back to the Order briefly, and Alastor Moody and I hunted down and captured Bellatrix Lestrange after she tortured the Longbottoms. It was my last mission with the Order, and it was a bitter one.

Bellatrix fought with a manic fury I'd never seen. She had nothing to lose now the Dark Lord had gone and she knew she was facing Azkaban. She nearly killed Moody, and as it was he lost his leg. I managed to disarm her, but then she was upon me, raking my face with her nails, screaming a curse that I've never been able to undo. The scars have never faded. I think she was goading me to kill her. I could have killed her. The killing curse was on the tip of my tongue. Aurors were authorised to use the Unforgivable Curses during the war, and I think could have gotten away with it, but I'd never used one. You have to mean them. You have to want to control, to inflict pain, to kill, and I thought I didn't have it in me. That night I did, and it had nothing to do with Bellatrix Lestrange or Lord Voldemort. My friends had distrusted me and I hated them for it. I've never felt so much hate, and it frightened me. The fear sobered me up. I took Bellatrix in and helped Moody to St Mungo's. And then I just walked away.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _May 14, 1988_

Dear Remus,

So it was you who captured Bellatrix. I'm glad it was you. I'm proud it was you. I wish I could have sat with you at her trial and been your friend at that time when you felt like you had no other.

I am starting to hate Sirius. Before, he was my beloved cousin who killed unfortunate strangers, but now he is my cousin who hurt you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 10, 1988_

Dear Remus,

I doubt that I've done it this year, but I'm determined to get an O on my Potions O.W.L. if it kills me. Or Snape. One of us has to go! I have to get an O otherwise he won't let me progress to N.E.W.T. level. Theory isn't going to be enough. I need to be able to prepare the actual potions as that's where I'm losing marks. I've got the whole summer ahead of me to practise and I brought my cauldron home, but of course I need ingredients.

I showed my parents the list of things I would need and my father's eyes watered a little. Two of the potions would cost twenty galleons a piece if I bought all the ingredients myself, so they vetoed those, but the eight others they agreed to. It's a dreadful expense and one that could be avoided if I had a nice, normal Potions master who would let me visit the school to practise, but I shan't dwell on that.

I took a muggle train down to London because I wanted to go by myself. Aren't they SLOW, Remus. Hours and hours clattering in and out of stations, and nowhere near as comfortable as the Hogwarts Express. I took my battered, splattered copy of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ with me to read so the time wouldn't be wasted. Some of the pages are stuck together because of the potions I've knocked over on it. I should have Scourgified it at school.

Mum told me to put more ordinary clothes on before I went, but I just laughed. I've seen muggle kids my age wear all sorts of crazy things and have odder hair than mine. It was raspberry pink yesterday, and I wore a grey mini-dress with big black boots. The boots were hot on my feet but I like them.

There were just a few people in the Leaky Cauldron as I passed through on my way to Slug & Jigger's Apothecary. That was quiet too – no students as they were all enjoying their holidays, and perhaps July is a slow month for spell-casting in general.

I was at the back of the store when I heard someone come in and speak to the sales clerk. I thought I knew the voice. It was pleasant and mild. A man's voice. And when I turned to see who it was, I saw you. Remus, I was so happy! I don't know what you were saying to the clerk but when I put my hand on your arm and you looked down and saw it was me, you looked like you'd seen a Dementor.

Why did you run from me? You couldn't get out of the store fast enough, but I went after you. Didn't you hear me calling? I lost you for a moment, and then I saw you duck into Knockturn Alley. And I followed you. I've never been down there before. All the sunlight was swallowed up and it was like twilight had fallen. The buildings were black and grim, and the people even grimmer. They stared at me with cold, hard eyes, but I pushed past them all, looking for you.

Finally I saw you walking quickly down a side street. I opened my mouth to call out to you, but then a man stepped out of the shadows next to you, and you stopped dead. He was huge and rough-looking with long, stringy hair and arms like tree trunks. He just … grinned at you. It was the nastiest smile I've ever seen. And the look on your face. Remus, I never thought you could look at anyone like that. It was like you wanted to kill him. You actually bared your teeth at him. A moment later you stalked away.

I was too shaken to call out again and I stood at the mouth of the street too long. That man saw me staring after you. He grinned even wider and began to walk toward me in long, loping strides.

At that moment who do you suppose stepped out of a shop between us? Snape and Lucius Malfoy. They were having a friendly chat but paused when they saw that man on one side and me on the other. I'm sure they spotted you, too, before you turned a corner.

Snape's eyes narrowed, as if he wasn't sure what had just happened, but Lucius pressed his lips together like he understood everything and found it all very irksome. I didn't want to talk to either of them so I walked off. I must have taken a wrong turn and I got lost, but then Snape appeared at my elbow like a big black bat. He hissed, 'That way, Miss _Tonks_ ,' and shoved me back into Diagon Alley.

I went back to the Slug & Jigger and got my things, but they're sitting on the floor at the end of my bed, untouched. Why did you run from me, Remus? What were you doing in Diagon Alley, and who was that man?

Yours,

Dora

...

 **It's never said who captured Bellatrix Lestrange after she tortured the Longbottoms, but there were so few Order members and Aurors left alive by the end of the war that it could very well have been Mad-Eye and Remus. It's also never said that Remus felt bitter about the Order suspecting he was the spy (they did suspect him, but because of Pettigrew, not Sirius) but I can't help but think he must have. The Order members may have accepted Pettigrew's slander because of Remus being a werewolf, which is so sad for him.**


	12. Chapter 12

**In the second half of this chapter Dora turns sixteen and Remus turns twenty-nine.**

...

 _July 11, 1988_

Dora –

You went down Knockturn Alley after me? Do you know how dangerous that is? You are underage and cannot defend yourself. There is Dark magic everywhere, even without Lord Voldemort, and especially in Knockturn Alley. That man you encountered was Fenrir Greyback. He's a dangerous, unconscionable killer who should be in Azkaban.

You're lucky this isn't a howler, Dora. I'm furious with you.

Remus

...

 _July 12, 1988_

Dear Remus,

That man was strange, but he didn't look like a particularly clever wizard and it was broad daylight. Well, sort of. Besides, I am a Black and you used to hunt Death Eaters! Who do you supposed the people of Knockturn Alley have it in for more?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 12, 1988_

Dora, I am in deadly earnest about this. Greyback doesn't care who you are. He maims children for fun or for revenge against their parents. He kills without scruple. Promise me you will never go there again while you are still underage. Will you promise me that?

...

 _July 12, 1988_

FINE

...

 _July 13, 1988_

Dora, please don't enchant your letters to blow raspberries at me.

...

 _July 14, 1988_

What were you doing in the Slug and Jigger? Why did you run away from me?

...

 _July 14, 1988_

Shopping. And I didn't run. I walked fast.

...

 _July 14, 1988_

OH, HAVE A NICE SUMMER, REMUS.

...

 _July 18, 1988_

Aunt Narcissa tattled to mum that I was in Knockturn Alley with you and Fenrir Greyback and now I'm not allowed to go to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year. I don't even know Greyback! Since when are Narcissa and my mum talking! Everyone can go drown themselves in the Black Lake.

Dora

...

 _September 14, 1988_

Dear Dora,

I had to put a cardigan on this morning so I think summer is over. Are you talking to me again? I'm sorry you can't go to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year, though perhaps you deserve it. I know I won't endear myself to you by saying that, but there you go.

This school year will be a difficult one for you, Dora, and I want to be here for you, if you'll let me.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 20, 1988_

Dear Remus,

Do you feel safe now that I'm back at school and you won't accidentally run into me somewhere? It will be hours, perhaps a day before you read this. Is that enough distance from me?

Dora

...

 _September 23, 1988_

Dear Dora,

I'm sorry. I do like the distance. I don't want to make you bitter. I have been writing to you because I thought I could offer support and understanding through your school years. I have found I like that feeling, very much. Will you let it continue, or do I hurt you too much?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 12, 1988_

Dear Remus,

I got an E in Potions for last year. If I can just scrape an O this year I'll be all set for my N.E.W.T.s.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 6, 1988_

Remus, I've just realised something terrible. I'm so sorry. I need to think about my O.W.L.s and I can't write to you anymore.

Please forgive me. It's nothing you've done.

Dora

...

 _November 12, 1988_

Dear Mrs Weasley,

Over the summer I went down Knockturn Alley and mum found out, and now I'm not allowed to go to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year. Charlie's been staying back on Saturdays to study with me, but instead of feeling grateful I just felt annoyed with him and I didn't know why until he tried to take my hand last week when we were walking back from Care of Magical Creatures. I yanked my hand away and he looked like I'd hit him. Before I could say sorry he'd run off, and I didn't go after him because I was suddenly struck with the most awful realisation. It's not Charlie I want to hold my hand at all, it's Remus. I have feelings for Remus. I know he doesn't return them for all sorts of reasons, and he couldn't anyway because I'm only fifteen and anyone halfway decent and who's twenty-eight couldn't think about a fifteen-year-old that way. But I know that even if I was twenty-eight he couldn't love me. I think he's glad I'm at school because it means he's safe from me. I can't make too many demands on him. It makes me feel dreadful knowing he's happy he can keep me at arm's length so I've told him I can't write to him anymore.

Could you please see that he gets this book back? It was a present, but it was his mother's copy of her favourite book so I don't think I should keep it.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 13, 1988_

Dear Dora,

I'm so sorry, sweetheart, for the pain you are feeling right now. That does sound like Remus, though I don't know him like you do. You're a good, sensible girl. I'll see he gets the book back. And please call me Molly.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _December 17, 1988_

Dear Dora,

He says the book is yours and he can't accept it back. He wants you to have it. I hope the studies are going well and you have a lovely Christmas with your family.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _June 24, 1989_

Lupin –

I meant to get the girl, Tonks, up to the Ministry for week or so this summer but I'm being sent to Poland and then I've got business in the north. Bring her, will you? Shacklebolt can sort out the passes.

Mad-Eye

...

 _June 25, 1989_

Lupin –

Your Patronus looked like he wanted to bite my other leg off. Busy, are you? Thought you wanted to help the girl.

Mad-Eye

...

 _June 25, 1989_

Arthur –

That Tonks girl is in sixth-year this September and she should see a bit of the Ministry. Can you have her at the Burrow and take her into work with you for a couple of days and introduce her around?

Mad-Eye

...

 _August 7, 1989_

Dear mum and dad,

The Ministry is such large, grand place with so many busy, austere people. Mr Weasley works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, which sits within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement just like the Auror Office. He knows everyone and has been so kind and generous with his time.

We were sitting in on a meeting when a witch got muddled about whether muggles still send telegrams, and I got a fit of the giggles. Did I mention how proper everyone is here? I don't know how I'll ever fit in.

Home in two days' time. Mrs Weasley will bring me by portkey.

Love,

Dora

...

 _December 5, 1989_

Dear Professor McGonagall,

What's being done about Dora Tonks's Metamorphmagus abilities? She's in sixth-year now and from what Arthur Weasley's told me I can't see that she's receiving any help at all. She should drop Care of Magical Creatures, which she does not need, and be encouraged to extend her abilities.

Regards,

Remus Lupin

...

 _December 7, 1989_

Dear Mr Lupin,

There are two hundred students under my tutelage and many of them are taking O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. Miss Tonks may need instruction but I do not have the time to provide specialised attention. You, however, have a personal understanding of the principle, though the mechanism isn't wholly analogous.

Regards,

Minerva McGonagall

...

 _December 15, 1989_

Dear Molly,

Thank you for the reading list, but if you wanted me to believe it was truly from Arthur then you should have got him to copy it out. I know Remus's handwriting, remember? I don't know where he thinks I'm going to find the time to read up on Metamorphmagology with my N.E.W.T. study to do. I am practising, I promise. I can manage a very passable Snape, to the terror of the other Hufflepuffs in the common room.

I hear Bill's been hired by Gringotts. Tell him congratulations from me.

Yours,

Dora

...

 **Quite a lot of short, rapidfire letters in this chapter, weren't there? Poor Nimblin must have been rushed off his talons. You may have noticed that at the start of the chapter that some of Dora and Remus's letters are sent back and forth on the same day. They were so agitated that they made Nimblin wait while they wrote their replies so he could take them straight back. So demanding! I hope Nimblin bit both of their fingers.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Now we fast forward through the second half of Dora's sixth year and all of her seventh, to arrive in the summer of 1991. Dora is eighteen, and has just graduated Hogwarts. Remus is thirty-one and living in his cottage in Yorkshire.**

 **I would recommend paying particular attention to the dates in this chapter.**

...

 _August 20, 1991_

To the Ministry of Magic, Auror Department,

Please find enclosed my completed application for Auror training, a transcript of my N.E.W.T. results and a letter of recommendation from my Hogwarts Head of House, Professor Pomona Sprout.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Nymphadora Tonks

...

 _September 4, 1991_

Dear Miss Tonks,

Please come to the Ministry of Magic at 11.00am on September 6 for an interview and testing.

Warm Regards,

Ingrid Pond

Secretary to Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office

...

 _September 7, 1991_

Lupin –

Heard you aren't speaking so I thought I'd let you know the girl got in. What's the matter with you, don't like having friends? We're having a bash for her at the Leaky Cauldron on Tuesday from six if you want to patch things up with her.

Mad-Eye

...

 _February, 8 1992_

Dear mum,

I thought Auror training would be like one really long but really exciting Defence Against the Dark Arts class, with field trips and stake outs and near-death experiences. But so far it's actually like studying for the longest, dullest History of Magic exam you can imagine. Oh, well, I've only just started so they were bound to hit me with a load of theory before the fun stuff begins.

At the moment I'm being taught about the rise of You-Know-Who and his recruitment of Dark creatures. It seems the Ministry got really worried about this in the sixties and were bringing in anyone or anything who might be doing Dark things for questioning. This afternoon I was reading a report about a Muggle tramp who'd been in the vicinity where two children had been mauled to death. The man insisted he knew nothing, and when they checked him against the Werewolf Registry he came up clean. But the registries were notoriously out of date in those days. One of the committee members thought that the tramp showed signs of lycanthropy and asked that he be held until the next full moon. He insulted werewolves in front of the tramp, calling them soulless, evil, and deserving nothing but death. The others didn't believe the tramp was a werewolf, and let him go.

Do you know what the tramp's name was? You know, don't you mum? It was Fenrir Greyback. And do you know who the committee member was who recognised Greyback for what he truly was? Lyall Lupin. Remus Lupin's father.

Why didn't you tell me? Did you think I would go and get myself bit? Did you think Remus Lupin is a crazed killer who would infect me if I wrote letters to him and offered him friendship? He liked the fact that I was far, far away from him, did you know? I saw him in person twice after we saw him with Sirius in Diagon Alley. The first time was on my fifteenth birthday and he stayed far away on the other side of the room. The second time he ran from me. It wasn't full moon. It wasn't even night-time. It was broad daylight. He was so ashamed of what he is and what people like you think of people like him that he couldn't bear to be near me in case I discovered his secret, too.

I broke off my friendship with him in fifth-year because I didn't understand why he pushed me away from him even as he wanted to help me. It was so confusing. All this time he probably thought I found out he was a werewolf and that I rejected him to.

I'm so angry, mum. I know why you were worried, but I'm so angry.

Love,

Dora

...

 _February 8, 1992_

Dear Molly,

Did you know all this time? About Remus? It's all right if you did. I won't be angry at you for keeping his secret. You were right to keep it. But does he think that I deserted him because of what he is? Please tell me he didn't think that, I'll never forgive myself.

Dora

...

 _February 9, 1992_

Dear Dora,

So you know. Yes, Arthur told me after the war, and I made sure Remus was always welcome here if he needed someone to talk to or just some company. He loves my boys and he and Arthur talk about the Ministry and You-Know-Who and Arthur's brothers. They were in the Order and were killed in the war.

Remus never thought you deserted him. He knew that he was asking too much of you, to be his friend but not ask questions. And you were so young. I know that made him anxious for you, that he might be hurting someone vulnerable, so he understood when you couldn't go on with the letters.

One word of caution, dear. Don't expect him to have changed. You've grown up, but he's the same person he always was, for better or worse.

Love,

Molly

...

 _February 28, 1992_

Dear Professor McGonagall

My Auror studies are progressing well and they're giving me such a lot of reading to do. It's like being back at school!

I came across a funny thing the other day and thought you might know the answer. I read in a book that werewolves are not a danger to Animagi and Metamorphmagi who have assumed a non-human form. Is that true?

Yours,

Nymphadora Tonks

...

 _March 3, 1992_

Dear Miss Tonks,

After so many years being surrounded by students who ask me not-so-innocent questions I have learned to read between the lines. You would not be at risk of lycanthropy infection from Remus Lupin if he bit you while you are in non-human form.

Your hair went suspiciously pink that evening you saw him in the Leaky Cauldron, my dear. I haven't forgotten. Please be careful.

Regards,

Minerva McGonagall

...

 _June 16, 1992_

Dora,

After the last three full moons I have woken up in the woods, not in the cage I keep in the cellar. This morning at dawn someone was laying out clothes for me in the living room. I saw her through the window before she Disapparated. She had pink hair. Am I about to get very, very angry with you?

Remus

...

 _June 17, 1992_

Dear Remus,

Full moon what? Cage? Clothes? What?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _June 18, 1992_

Dora,

I saw you outside the Ministry tonight – don't pretend you didn't see me before you Disapparated. There are scratches on your arms and face, half healed. I caused them, didn't I? Dora, have I bitten you? How could you be so reckless? What were you thinking? Do you not understand that I lock myself up for a reason?

Remus

...

 _June 19, 1992_

Dear Remus,

I was a wolf, too, you dolt. We ran together. We've been running together for three months. You are magnificent.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 15, 1992_

Dear Remus,

Did you really think you could keep me out of your cottage? I was a better student in Charms than you. Here, you're probably hungry this morning. We went miles and miles across the moors. There's a fresh shirt and trousers laid out on the sofa. Enjoy your breakfast, I have to get back to London.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 15, 1992_

Dora,

I forbid you to come again next month. I absolutely, categorically and emphatically forbid it.

Remus

...

 _August 13, 1992_

Dear Remus,

The sky was heavy with clouds last night so we couldn't see the moon. You're a pensive wolf when the moon is hidden, and instead of running and running till our flanks were aching we followed the trail of a fox through the heather, just for the joy of it. Sometime in the small hours we found a thicket of bracken and slept until dawn, curled around each other.

You are serious under cloud, but I love you under summer moonlight. You are a proud wolf, then, your fur rippling with silver, you nose up to catch the scents on the wind. You're growing stronger each month and we can run further and further. What a place you have chosen to make your home! It's perfect. I wish you could hear yourself howl.

You're starting to remember some of this when you come back into yourself, aren't you?

Yours,  
Dora

...

 _August 14, 1992_

Dora, please. Don't.

...

 _August 15, 1992_

Do you not remember any of this? I feel like you are more and more you each time. I can see the intelligence returning to your green eyes. I can even see humour. You seemed to laugh at me when I fell into a ditch, and then you leapt lightly down to lick my snout, as if you were sorry for laughing.

Dora

...

 _August 20, 1992_

Dora, I saw you sitting at the tree line tonight from my cottage window. I know it was you. I said no. Not anymore. I don't want it.

...

 _August 21, 1992_

Am I a pretty wolf, Remus?

...

 _August 22, 1992_

Don't be ridiculous. You are a beautiful wolf. But you are small – you must be half my size when I am changed. How have you managed to keep me from leaving the woods and the moors?

...

 _August 23, 1992_

I don't know. You just don't seem interested in anything but the trees and the smells and the night. You like your freedom.

...

 **By the end of this chapter Dora has turned nineteen and Remus is thirty-two. This was my favourite chapter to write so far. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	14. Chapter 14

_August 27, 1992_

Dora, leaping over the garden wall while I'm pruning the roses is not funny.

...

 _August 28, 1992_

Yes it is. Thank you for the fresh meat.

...

 _August 29, 1992_

Dear Dora,

You're welcome. But wolves don't wag their tails, you know.

So, how did you find out about Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs? I suppose someone who was in the Order. Or was it Dumbledore?

Tell me what you have been doing. I'm tired of hearing snatches about you from Molly and Mad-Eye.

Yours,

Remus

 _..._

 _August 31, 1992_

Dear Remus,

I've missed being Dora. Everyone calls me Tonks. Don't you start, though.

Who are Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs? (I'm not being coy. I really don't know.)

How far back should I go? I suppose three years should do it. Somehow, SOMEHOW, I got an O in Potions on my O.W.L.s. I think it might have caused Snape actually bodily pain that I did so well. Around mid-January of my fifth-year he gave me a filthy look and said, 'You've been _practising_.' It was the way any other teacher might say, 'You've been _cheating_.'

I learned to cast a Patronus that year, and I was the first in the class to manage it. She's a rabbit. I was instantly reminded of Bellatrix and Babbity Rabbity and I lost my concentration and she vanished.

Oh, I've just realised – yours must be a wolf. I remember you described it as proud, beautiful and terrifying.

Years six and seven are a blur of classes and exam revision. Nothing happened except I got good grades and I taught myself to turn into all sorts of creatures. And I missed you, Remus. Sometimes Molly told me how you were if I really, really begged.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 7, 1992_

Dear Dora,

The owl that brought your letter was a beautiful snowy owl, and it didn't seem in much of a hurry to leave. It sat perched on my shoulder as I set about making my dinner, digging its talons in and hooting softly if I moved too quickly. After dinner it fell asleep on the back of my chair and nibbled at my ear every now and then as I read.

The next day there was a fluffy cat sitting on my front gate when I came home. I got the front door open and it jumped down and ran inside. After I gave it a tin of tuna (why do I have tuna? I hate tuna) it fell asleep next to me on the sofa and purred.

The day after that a squirrel listened very attentively while I read aloud from _Wandering with Werewolves_. Gilderoy Lockhart really is an ass and I would bet ten galleons that he's never been within five feet of a werewolf. He's just been appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, did you hear? The squirrel got sleepy around chapter eight and went to make itself a nest in my sock draw. It scampered out the window at dawn.

After that it was a rabbit, who nosed into every room in the house and came out from behind the furniture covered in cobwebs.

Then there was a fox, who wanted to play. Then a doe, who was so polite and quiet I almost forgot she was there, until she ate a hole in the shirt I was wearing. And then yesterday the cat was back again. It leaped all over the kitchen after a fly, meowed for more tuna, but I had to give it sausage, and then curled up on my lap and shed all over my trousers.

If you want to keep me company of an evenings you could at least assume a form that can talk back.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 8, 1992_

Dear Remus,

What makes you think all these animals are me?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 9, 1992_

Dear Dora,

Because they were all a vivid shade of bubblegum pink. I do wish you wouldn't. I kept forgetting the cat was you and petting your fur, and telling you what a good little pud-pud you were.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 10, 1992_

Dear Remus,

But I am! I am the best pud-pud!

Remus, if I come as me you'll probably scold me about something and I won't get to sit on your lap. Buy more tuna.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 13, 1992_

I think you must have a long walk home this morning, Remus. You don't have your wand on you when you change back so you can't Apparate. I tried to lead you back toward the cottage before the moon set but you would have your fun. You wanted to run all the way to the other side of the moor and kept zig-zagging between me and the horizon as I trotted away. I would bring you your things but I think I might embarrass you. Well. It's a warm morning so you shouldn't get too cold.

I'm leaving now for London, but I'll see you soon, in one form or another.

Dora

...

 _September 14, 1992_

Dear Dora,

Thank you for leaving food out, I was hungry.

I'm Moony, Peter Pettigrew was Wormtail, Sirius is Padfoot and James Potter was Prongs. Moony because of the werewolf thing, you see? But they weren't just nicknames for the others, either. They were such good friends to me that they became Animagi and we would roam Hogwarts at the full moon. It kept my mind somewhat human to have them with me, and Padfoot and Prongs were large enough to keep me in line. Sirius can become a large black dog and James was a stag. That's why I worry when you let me out and it's just you, little wolf, because as determined as you are you wouldn't stand a chance if I attacked you or ran wild.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 15, 1992_

Dear Remus,

I keep telling you, you don't show any desire to attack me apart from play-fighting. You can be a little rough sometimes but I don't mind. And you love the woods and the moors. You just want to run and explore. I hate to think of you in a cage.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _October 12, 1992_

Dora. I remember. We were down by the stream and you were pouncing on ripples. I took your snout between my teeth and growled because I was trying to drink. When I let go you bounded around me in circles, yipping and nipping at my ankles. You weren't afraid of me. Why weren't you afraid of me?

...

 **I'm sorry it was a short chapter today but I hope that Remus remembering him and Dora as wolves and Dora sitting on his lap as a fluffy pink cat made up for it. This chapter gets me right here.**

 **If you'd like a giggle, Google image search for 'best pud pud background Slytherin'. The cartoon inspired pud-pud in this chapter!**


	15. Chapter 15

**We're approaching the time when Remus starts teaching at Hogwarts! In this chapter Dora is in her second year of Auror training and turns twenty, and Remus turns thirty-three.**

...

 _October 13, 1992_

Dear Remus,

You remember. You remember you REMEMBER.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _October 29, 1992_

Dear Dora,

A very strange thing has reached my ears. As an illustrious second-year Auror trainee you can probably tell me all about it. I believe Quirinus Quirrell was the Professor of Muggle Studies while you were at Hogwarts? Last September, after an absence of a year, he was put in charge of Defence Against the Dark Arts and lasted – are you surprised? – for just one year. But unlike most recent professors in that position, who resign or are fired, he died, and in very suspicious circumstances.

Do you know any more about it?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _November 3, 1992_

Dear Remus,

I have done some digging and some gossiping and a matter of fact I can. It's rather alarming. Are you sitting down?

During his sabbatical, Professor Quirrell found a non-corporeal trace of You-Know-Who (I know you call him by his name, Remus, but I think you and Dumbledore are the only ones) and it possessed him. You-Know-Who wanted Quirrell to find and steal for him the Philosopher's Stone, which Dumbledore had hidden at Hogwarts. Somehow, Harry Potter, James and Lily's son, managed to thwart the plans, and Quirrell died. Can you imagine? In Harry Potter's very first year at the school.

What I don't understand is how there can be traces of You-Know-Who left in the world. It frightens me. What if he comes back?

See you Tuesday.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 5, 1992_

Dora. I wish you wouldn't treat the full moon like it was … a spell club we both went to or something of the sort.

Lord Voldemort come back. I don't know. There are things someone can do to preserve pieces of a soul in all sorts of unhallow forms. Dark things. But after all this time? Now Quirrell is dead that trace of Lord Voldemort is out in the world again. I wonder where it is.

James Potter's son was the one to thwart the Dark Lord's plans. That is pleasing. I hope I meet the boy one day.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _December 23, 1992_

Dear Remus,

Look how my knitting has come along since school! Patterns. Sleeves. I had to guess your size, and I fear it may be a little big because I know you better in wolf form than man form. Here it is two days early so you can wear it on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas,

Dora

...

 _December 25, 1992_

Dear Dora,

A howling wolf in a Santa hat, was there ever anything more festive? My mother would have been most amused. Thank you, little wolf. It's a size or two too large but I will grow into it on the next full moon. Between you and Molly Weasley I am swimming in knitwear, though hers is never as colourful as yours.

As you've said, you were better in Charms than I was, but I think I haven't done too badly with your present.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _December 26, 1992_

Dear Remus,

I turned out all the lights in the living room and lit the candle you sent me and the ceiling and walls were suddenly flickering with stars. It was a beautiful map of the heavens that moved from east to west as the candle burned. There was even a waxing moon. You are clever. I love it. Mum and dad were very impressed.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 9, 1993_

Dear Dora,

The snow was lying thick on the moors and the moon was hidden behind a dark, heavy sky. We loped along the edge of the trees where the drifts weren't quite so thick, sometimes stopping to nibble the ice that froze around our paws.

But it was bitter cold, even in our fur coats, and we ran back to the cottage and somehow nosed our way inside. You pulled the blankets off the bed with your teeth and I woke this morning holding sleeping a girl, not a wolf.

Yours,

Remus

...

January 10, 1993

Remus, you remembered the whole night. Where were you when I woke? I couldn't find you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 20, 1993_

Dear Dora,

Arthur tells me there have been more strange things happening up at Hogwarts. People being petrified, and apparently James's son can speak Parseltongue like Salazar Slytherin. But the Potter and Slytherin bloodlines are quite separate. Have you heard anything about this down in London?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _January 25, 1993_

Dear Remus,

Mad-Eye doesn't know what to make of it. There is talk of the school being closed down if the attacks don't stop. Remus, our school. They can't really close Hogwarts, can they?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 2, 1993_

I don't know, Dora. What a year for Dumbledore to hire someone like Lockhart. He must be wetting his pants.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _March 10, 1993_

Dear Remus,

It's spring so you'll be tending your garden again, working the soil over and planting new seeds. This is a fair-crow, and he will protect your seedlings from frost, bugs, hail and hungry rabbits. I've had to deliver it using the largest owl the Ministry has. His name is Titan. Isn't he a beauty!

Happy birthday.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 10, 1993_

Dear Dora,

Thank you for the fair-crow, he will stand sentinel over the flowerbed I planted a few days ago. Titan is eating a plate of bacon while I write this note. Hasn't he got marvellous tufted ears.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _April 19, 1993_

Remus, they removed Dumbledore as headmaster of Hogwarts today and sent Hagrid to Azkaban. Hagrid! Why? He couldn't petrify anyone. I want to go up there with the Ministry but of course I'm not allowed. Instead I'm down here practising blocking charms until my arm feels like it's going to fall off.

Dora

...

 _April 20, 1993_

Dear Dora,

When I was at Hogwarts there was a rumour that Hagrid had unleashed some sort of evil on the school back in his student days, but I could never believe it was true. Hagrid has strange taste in pets but he'd never wilfully endanger the students. I'm afraid the Ministry seem to be using him as a scapegoat.

Dumbledore being removed as Headmaster saddens me greatly. I never thought I would get to go to school, but he came to see my parents when I was eleven and told us there was no reason I couldn't if we took certain precautions. A kinder, more understanding man I don't think I shall ever meet.

Be patient, Dora. I fear we will need people like you all too soon.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _July 10, 1993_

Dear Remus,

Dumbledore has been reinstated and Hagrid is reprieved! Merlin's pants, what a relief. I hear also that Gilderoy Lockhart has wound up in St Mungo's and he doesn't know who he is. Another Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher gone.

Yours,

Dora

 _..._

 _July 29, 1993_

Dear Dora,

The most remarkable thing has happened. I received a visit tonight from our old Headmaster who has offered me the post of Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. I was opening my mouth to refuse – I can't be around all those people at the full moon, especially not children – when he told me that Snape has agreed to brew wolfsbane potion for me as long as I am in the position.

Do you remember, Dora, that terrible summer I had when we weren't speaking? Narcissa Malfoy had hinted to you about what I was and it got to me. I was feeling very low and poor, and very fed up with everything. I'd just heard about wolfsbane potion and was filled with hope for a short time, only to have those hopes dashed. The potion allows a werewolf to keep his mind during the full moon and renders him completely safe and un-wolflike, though he does still transform. Unfortunately it's one of the most complex potions there is to make, and it's ghastly expensive to get the ingredients. I'm not in a position to make it or buy it.

The next summer you ran into me at Flourish & Blotts and I was asking the proprietor if he knew of any cheaper substitutes for some of the ingredients. When you put your hand on my arm and smiled up at me so trustingly I was filled with horror at what I was and fear that you had overheard what I was saying. So I ran.

Dumbledore knew he was offering me the one thing that would convince me to take the job, so I have. I must say, now that it's all sunk in I feel rather excited. A teacher. I think that might suit me. I suppose I can't do any worse than Lockhart, and if I survive the year I'll be one up on Quirrell.

Yours,

Remus


	16. Chapter 16

**The Fanfiction system seems to have been glitching so I haven't been able to reply to reviews! Sorry for going silent on my regulars. I think it's back to normal again now so I look forward to replying. And thank you to those of you who leave guest reviews - I can't reply but I do read all your lovely comments.**

...

 _July 11, 1993_

Dear Remus,

A professor! How simply wonderful for you. There is no one I can think of who would make a more kind, patient and learned Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

I did not know about wolfsbane potion. How rotten those summers must have been for you, to have your hopes dashed like that. It seems saviours come in all forms, even the sallow, ominous figure of Professor Snape. You know, Remus, that when we run together through the woods and on the moors you have never given me one reason to be afraid of you, but I can see that in the castle you would feel easier with the potion.

Here is the biggest block of Honeydukes Dark Chocolate I could find. I am so proud of you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 17, 1993_

Dear Remus,

Have you heard? I don't think you get the papers so I enclose a copy of the _Prophet_. Sirius has escaped from Azkaban. I feel cold all over.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 19, 1993_

Dear Dora,

So Padfoot has escaped. I wonder why now, after all these years?

I'm packing for school. How funny and merry I feel saying that.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 5, 1993_

Dear Dora,

And now it is my turn to write to you from Hogwarts. I must say, it's all right this, being a professor. I stride about in long robes all day and small people are deferential to me. Everyone addresses me as Professor Lupin, even the other teachers, when it feels like only yesterday they were addressing me as, 'You, Lupin, stop that and _sit down_.'

The delightfully batty Professor Trelawny predicted my gruesome death, which made me feel rather at home. Professor McGonagall gave me an arch small and enquired about you. She seemed to know something I don't. You are well, aren't you?

I've been given a large tower room as my office with a big fire and an ample desk. I brought all my books with me, even my old schoolbooks from Herbology and Charms, because they're like old friends. The scarlet rockinghorse flower you gave me ten years ago (can it really be ten, Dora?) is a little faded but in otherwise perfect condition between the pages of _A History of Hogwarts_.

There's a large portrait of Galatea Merrythought on the wall, who was the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for fifty years. How many professors she must have seen come and go recently. When I had everything set up just as I wanted, I sat down in my chair and thumped the arms, rather pleased with it all. She sniffed and said, 'Don't get too comfortable, professor.' Sobering woman.

My quarters are above my office, one turn up the spiral stairs. I think I was expecting the narrow four-poster that I had in my dorm room twenty years ago, but the bed's enormous. It's not as though they skimped on furnishings in the dorms but I do feel rather spoiled by all the rugs and tapestries and brass candlesticks.

We had a little incident coming up on the train. I fell asleep in one of the compartments and awoke to find Dementors on board, hunting Sirius Black. I mean, on the Hogwarts train? They are too zealous by far. There was a boy crumpled on the floor when I woke with a start, and a Dementor standing in the doorway. I told it that we weren't hiding Sirius under our cloaks, but the ghastly thing just floated there. I had to summon a Patronus to get it to leave. It was one of mist, Dora. I don't like strangers seeing the wolf.

Do you know who the boy was? Harry Potter. He is the image of James at that age, though he has Lily's kind eyes. She was very good to me when we were young. She was even good to Snape.

The Dementors are all around the perimeter of the school, protecting us from Sirius. It rather feels like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, but Dumbledore says he has no choice.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 7, 1993_

Dear Remus

The rumour at the Ministry is that Sirius wants to murder Harry Potter because he think it will bring You-Know-Who back. Oh, do be careful, Remus. I can't help feeling that he'll show up there.

You sound like you're settling in well. The students are so lucky to have you and you're a natural teacher. I wish you had been my professor.

I wrote to Professor McGonagall last year asking her, innocently I thought, a theoretical question about werewolves, Animagi and Metamorphmagi. She saw right through me, the shrewd tabby cat.

The other teachers are nice to you, aren't they? The ones who know about you, I mean?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _September 10, 1993_

Dear Dora,

I'm glad you're not my student, you would find ways to make me laugh when I am trying to be professorly.

Everyone is being very kind to me, though Snape is predictably ungracious when he provides me the wolfsbane potion. I returned the favour by suggesting to one terrified student that he dress his Snape Boggart in his grandmother's clothing. It tickled me no end.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 1, 1993_

Dear Remus,

Last night was the first full moon I haven't spent with you nearly all year. I wanted to leave you in peace with the potion so you could judge for yourself how it works. Are you pleased with the results?

Yours,

Dora

...

October 3, 1993

Dear Dora,

It's quite remarkable. You have to take the potion every day for seven days preceding the full moon, and I did, faithfully. I get quite peaky around the full moon and Snape took my second-year class for me the afternoon of the day I was due to change. That evening I felt the transformation come upon me as violently and painfully as ever. But after … stillness. Utter calm. I didn't feel like a wolf at all. I looked at the book open on my desk and I could actually read the words.

I grew quite sleepy after that and put myself to bed. When I awoke in the morning it was as my normal self. No scratches on my body. No mud caking my hands and feet. No exhaustion.

I found out later that morning that in my absence Snape had taught my third-years how to identify a werewolf. How droll his sense of humour is.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _November 2, 1993_

Dear Remus,

I couldn't stay away another full moon, so I Apparated into Hogsmeade, turned into a robin, and flew to your room. It didn't take me long to find. I beat my wings against the window and how surprised I was when a furry nose opened the latched window for me. You were quite dopey from the potion already so I turned into a wolf too and we slept. It really is an enormous bed.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 13, 1993_

Dear Dora,

I have this friend whom I haven't seen properly in her true form since she was fifteen. Will you come to Hogsmeade this Saturday, if you are able? I'm sure you remember how pretty it is at Christmastime.

Yours,

Remus

...

 **Remus at Hogwarts is my favourite Remus so far, and how sweet are he and Dora right now?**

 **When Harry teaches Dumbledore's Army he wears a cardigan out of respect for his favourite knitwear-toting professor. I think that detail is just in the film, but I'll be checking for it in the books during my next re-read. Unless anyone knows?**


	17. Chapter 17

**In this chapter Dora turns twenty-one and Remus turns thirty-four.**

 _December 18, 1993_

Dear Molly,

I've had such a wonderful year. Sorry that I haven't written very much, my head's been full of Auror training and one thing or another.

Did you hear that Remus is Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts? I expect your boys have mentioned it. Are they finding him to be a good teacher? It's been such a good thing for Remus to be around people, and the wolfsbane potion Professor Snape has been making for him to control his wolfish nature when he's transformed have allowed him to relax his reserve.

I know all this because I saw him, in person, yesterday. I've been visiting him as a wolf or a cat or an owl or a squirrel since we became friends again last year, but never as me. I don't really know why. I think I've been afraid to talk to him in person in case something goes wrong between us again. We write all the time and his letters are full of news and humour. He's happy for the first time since I've known him.

He asked me to meet him in Hogsmeade yesterday. Properly meet him, unchanged. I was so nervous when I Apparated into the main square. It was snowing, but in that pretty way where everything looks softened and festive. I was only waiting a minute when he appeared, striding up the street in a large black coat (wool, not wolf fur) and that simply ghastly scarf I knitted for him so long ago. We grinned at each other for about a minute like total idiots, and then strolled about, window shopping and watching the students running in and out of the stores. They all greeted him cheerily and it made me so happy to see how well-loved he is.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout gave me a kiss as we passed them inside the Three Broomsticks. Remus got us a couple of hot Butterbeers and we found a table.

When I took off my coat he saw the necklace I was wearing and studied it for a moment. Then he touched it with the tip of his finger and said, 'What's that?'

He would notice it right off. 'It's a phase-of-the-moon necklace. It changes as the moon waxes and wanes. I've been wearing it ever since …' And I trailed off, but he understood. I've been wearing it since I found out he's a werewolf.

It was the only reference we made to what he is, and we didn't talk about his transformations or the wolfsbane potion or any of that. We talked about school and the Ministry and the teachers, and laughed about his classes and my training with Mad-Eye, and it was so, so wonderful.

You said that he wouldn't change but you should see him now. Hogwarts has worked its magic on him. He told me once that his time there was the happiest of his life and it has become that way again. I could kiss Dumbledore.

Give my love to all the family when you see them, and Merry Christmas!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _December 24, 1993_

Dear Dora,

Professor Sprout thought she could spare these for her favourite ex-student (you, not me). They were my mother's favourite.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _December 25, 1993_

Dear Remus,

Pink roses, in winter! How beautiful, and they smell heavenly. Thank you so much. They're sitting in a vase by my bedside so they will be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

Here are a new brace of quills for you as yours must be getting quite a workout with all that marking. I insist that you write to me using the ostrich plume. It's so fancy.

Merry Christmas!

Yours,

Dora

...

 _February 27, 1993_

Dora. When you fluttered in through my window last night you turned into a girl, not a wolf. Do you know you are the very first person to be close to me while I am changed and I am not caged or tied or chained? I felt dizzy with the daring of it. It was very strange to look down through the night and see your pink hair spread out over my forelegs and your nose tucked against my chest while you slept. Is my fur not too rough?

...

 _February 28, 1993_

It is the most comfortable thing in the world to sleep against a wolf. You radiate warmth and your breathing is slow and deep. Your fur is soft and smells like heather and the underside of river stones, with just a hint of parchment and ink.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 5, 1994_

Dear Molly,

I've had the most wonderful birthday and I am simply bursting to tell someone about it. Remus asked me to come up to Hogsmeade to see him again and I met him in the square. It was fresh and clear and very green, and the sun was out. He kissed my cheek in greeting, and tucked my hand through his elbow, and we got lots of teasing looks from the students. Some of the eldest ones remember me from when I was in sixth- and seventh-year, and they greeted Remus and me with extra broad grins.

We bought too many sweets in Honeydukes, ate cake in Madam Puddifoots and ended up in the Three Broomsticks. When we were seated, Remus gave me this small, mischievous smile and said, 'Can I see you arm, Dora?' And I held out my right arm to him and he took it gently in his hands for a moment before telling me to close my eyes. He seemed to be fiddling with my charm bracelet, and when he told me to open my eyes again there was a new silver charm clipped to it. A rabbit, for my Patronus. Oh, Molly, I though he was going to kiss me then, he was sitting so close and was looking into my eyes. But someone jostled our table and he got up to get us a round of Butterbeers.

Tonight when I got home I replayed the memory and the rabbit burst from my wand with such exuberance and gambolled about the room.

I love him, Molly. I feel like I can finally admit that to myself and not feel sick with hopelessness. Do you think there might be a chance for us, now that he has the wolfsbane potion and isn't afraid to touch me in our own forms?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _June 7, 1994_

Remus – the Ministry has come practically to a standstill. Sirius was at Hogwarts last night and he escaped, along with a Hippogriff which had been sentenced to death? This is too strange. What has happened? Are you all right?

Dora

...

 _June 9, 1994_

Dear Remus,

Word has reached me that you have resigned you post. Please, please say that isn't so. I'm at your cottage right now but it's shut up and you're not here. They're also saying the Peter Pettigrew is alive? I don't understand. Send me your Patronus as soon as you get this and let me know that you're all right.

Yours,

Dora

...

 **She loves him! But oh no, he's left Hogwarts and doesn't have the potion anymore. How is he going to react?**

 **On that little cliffhanger, I'm going to take a couple of days break for Christmas and will start updating again around Boxing Day. Have a lovely holiday everyone, whatever holidays you're celebrating, stay safe and thank you for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

_June 12, 1994_

Dora,

I've just returned home and found your letter. I spent a few days with my father. Yes, I resigned. Severus let slip about what I am to his students. I missed a draft of my potion in the excitement of finding out Wormtail is alive and my old friend Sirius hadn't betrayed me after all.

Don't be too sad for me, Dora, that I only lasted a year. They say the job is jinxed.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _June 13, 1994_

Remus, please. Don't be so hasty. Dumbledore already knew that you are a werewolf and if it doesn't matter to him then it needn't matter to anyone. You are a good man and a good teacher. I am sure if you write to him everything will be sorted out before the new school year begins.

Dora

...

 _June 14, 1994_

Dora, Dora. You are sweet to fret about me, but remember I am used to this. Dumbledore is not the problem. The Hogwarts Board of Governors (people like Lucius Malfoy who do not even like muggle romance novels) will not permit a werewolf on the staff and neither will the parents. I will make the best of things. I always do.

Tell me – you must finish your Auror training this September. What is in store for your final months? What will your first mission be?

And remember, we both have something to rejoice about – Sirius is not a murderer. He's had to go away for now, until he can clear his name with the Ministry, but he's cleared in our hearts of all wrongdoing. We have him back.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _June 18, 1994_

Moony, old friend. So, Wormtail got away. I almost wish Harry hadn't talked us out of killing him.

Things are very fine here out in the wide world. I would recommend it to everyone. How are you? I'm sorry, I hear I cost you your position at Hogwarts.

Padfoot

...

 _June 25, 1994_

Oh, I'm all right, Padfoot. It wasn't your fault. I won't deny that it was galling leaving Hogwarts like that, and under the sneering gaze of Severus. I think Dora has taken it hardest, though. She knew how much … Well, she's been a good friend to me.

Remus

...

 _June 30, 1994_

Moony – my Dora? Little Tonks? What has she to do with anything?

Padfoot

...

 _July 3, 1994_

We've written letters on and off over the years. When she started her Auror training she happened across the committee report about Greyback and my father and put two and two together. She's been good to me. Better than I deserve. And she missed you, Padfoot. Write her a letter, will you?

...

 _July 6, 1994_

Dear Tonks,

Moony tells me you're an Auror these days. Well, well, that will certainly keep the remaining Blacks in line from now on, though I don't understand how you can be an Auror when you're eleven or fourteen or whatever ghastly young age you are. Merlin's beard, I've been away a long time.

If I can find a way to do it I'll come back. In the meantime, send me a letter or two with the news.

Yours,

Sirius

...

 _July 10, 1994_

Dear Sirius,

Yes, I just qualified, and yes you have been away for some time. I feel terrible that you were in Azkaban all those years and you were innocent. How did you bear it? I'm glad you're in touch with Remus. He's been a good friend to me.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _July 13, 1994_

Dear Tonks,

What's going on with the two of you? What's this morose 'he's been a good friend to me' business? It sounds as if you two have had a almighty row.

Sirius

...

 _July 22, 1994_

Moony –

Tonks has clammed up so I'll try you. Are the two of you not speaking? All I get are variations of the two of you once being very good friends. Fill me in, old man, there's a story here.

...

 _July 25, 1994_

Mind your own business, Padfoot.

Moony

...

 _July 29, 1994_

I see! Oh-ho! Thank you, Moony, for giving me the first good laugh I've had in thirteen years. There is a story here.

...

 _August 3, 1994_

Dear Professor Snape,

I am aware that you made wolfsbane potion for Professor Lupin all last year while he was on the staff at Hogwarts. Now that his supply can no longer come from the school I've attempted to make it myself, but the concoction keeps going wrong. Do you have any notes or other directions you can provide me? I'd be eternally grateful.

Failing that, could you find time in your schedule to go on making the potion? I would of course reimburse you for your effort and the cost of the ingredients.

Regards,

Nymphadora Tonks

...

 _August 5, 1994_

Miss Tonks,

Making the wolfsbane potion is far above the skills of a witch of your competency. It takes a master to brew such a complex, delicate concoction. Notes, I assure you, would not suffice.

As to you suggestion that I make the potion, how long would you expect me to continue this endeavour? For the rest of his life, or the rest of mine?

S.S.

...

 _August 28, 1994_

Arthur – I just heard. There were Death Eaters at Quidditch World Cup and the Dark Mark was seen in the sky. Are you and the family all right?

Remus

...

 _September 1, 1994_

Remus, yes, we're all right, but shaken up by the whole thing. We don't know if it was a twisted prank or the start of something bigger. The Ministry's in chaos and Mad-Eye's accepted the role of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts. I mean, Dumbledore must think it's serious if he's persuaded Mad-Eye to take the role, right? Not that you weren't serious, of course – you were best professor they ever had, all my children said so, and Harry, too. But Mad-Eye's left the Auror office for this. And he was attacked in his home last night. He's all right, but it's worrying, so soon after the riot and the Dark Mark.

I have to go. I've barely seen Molly and the kids since it happened. I'll let you know if … well, just don't disappear or anything, all right? We may need you.

Arthur

...

 _September 1, 1994_

Dora, I just heard that Mad-Eye has accepted the post of Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, and so soon after you finished your training. How are you taking it?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 2, 1994_

Dear Uncle Lucius,

How are you and dear Aunt Narcissa? Is Draco making you proud at Hogwarts? And did you have a nice time at the Quidditch World Cup? This is just a friendly note to let you know there's an Auror in the family now, and she doesn't like Death Eaters very much.

With love,

Nymphadora Tonks

...

 **Well. I think we can say that she's not taking the news very well.**

 **I had to fudge the where-is-Mad-Eye timeline here. Tonks was his protegee for her Auror training (which takes three years) and then he goes to Hogwarts to teach, but he was also supposed to be retired at some point. The retirement just didn't seem to fit so I left it out.**


	19. Chapter 19

_September 14, 1994_

Dear Remus,

I saw Dora yesterday and she looked simply awful. Would you please do a better job of convincing her you're all right after losing the position at Hogwarts? She's taking it as if she's the one who's lost her job. Do you have any idea how much it meant to her, knowing you were happy last year? Go and see her and put some pink in her hair, for heaven's sake.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _September 17, 1994_

Dora, come and run with me.

...

 _September 20, 1994_

The ferret who curled up at the foot of my bed in the small hours was the unhappiest little ferret I've ever seen. She didn't nibble my ear or chew a hole in the bedclothes or run off with my last pair of clean socks. She wasn't even pink.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _September 25, 1994_

Last night a sad little wren sat on my windowsill as if all the cares in the world were on her feathery shoulders. I tried reading funny stories to her to cheer her up. I made the butter dish tap dance and the condiments put on a Quidditch match. Nothing seem to amuse her.

I'm all right, Dora. I promise.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 7, 1994_

You are a very beautiful ostrich and of course you're always welcome to sit under my kitchen table all evening anytime you feel like it. But I do feel rather worried about you. I didn't know an ostrich could sigh.

Remus

...

 _October 14, 1994_

Last night a foot-long parrot swooped through my window and helped herself to a glass of firewhiskey that had been left sitting out while I was in the garden. When I came in she was walking in circles on the floor singing the Hogwarts Sorting Hat song, except she'd forgotten most of the words and was replacing them with 'doo doo doo'. Then she hauled herself up onto the back of the sofa by her beak and squawked 'EXPECTO PATRONUM' and 'WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA' periodically throughout the evening.

It was one of the stranger evenings I've ever spent, though not unwelcome.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _October 20, 1994_

Dora. I woke up in the woods, and when I came home there was a fire in the grate and someone had made muffins. Thank you, little wolf. I don't remember any of it, but I'm so glad you came.

...

 _October 22, 1994_

Dear Molly,

I want you to rip up that letter I sent in May. I was being foolish and sentimental. Remus and I are friends and if I push him for anything more it will all go wrong and we won't even have our friendship. I'm fine with that, honestly. I don't need anything more. He's a good friend.

Lots of love to you and all the family,

Dora

...

 _October 28, 1994_

Moony – I'm back. Dumbledore knows, and so does Harry. I'm in hiding, and moving about all the time. I can't stay away while my godson might be in danger. I've spent too long languishing. Don't write, but send me your Patronus if there's something urgent.

Padfoot

...

 _October 29, 1994_

Dear Dora,

Padfoot's back. Give him my best if your paths cross.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _November 23, 1994_

Dear Remus,

I got a surprise visit from Charlie Weasley tonight. I didn't know he was in town and I was so pleased to see him until he told me why he was here. Remus, they'll be battling dragons in the Tri-Wizard tournament. The champions will be up against nesting mothers, one of the most vicious times for dragons.

I've only half been paying attention to this tournament business but I went cold when Charlie told me. Harry shouldn't be part of it at all seeing as he's underage. You don't think someone's trying to kill him do you, like, oh, a former Death Eater? Igor Karkaroff is the Headmaster of Durmstrang, one of the other schools competing. Thank Merlin that Mad-Eye's there to keep his magic eye on both Harry and Karkaroff. Constant vigilance.

Haven't seen a whisker of Padfoot. I hope he knows what he's doing.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _November 25, 1994_

Dear Dora,

I suppose that means we can guess who attacked Mad-Eye the night before he set off for Hogwarts. Merlin's ears, Hogwarts hasn't had a dull moment since Harry started there.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _January 17, 1995_

Dear Remus,

It's a bloody cold winter to be an Auror. I charmed my coat with a warming spell but it does nothing for the tip of my nose or my feet. They've got me trailing Death Eaters from the first war, the ones who claimed they'd been Imperiused, even though the official line is that You-Know-Who and his followers had nothing to do with the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup. Unofficially, in the Auror office, we think otherwise.

We think we know which Death Eaters caused the riot, and last night I followed Walden McNair about in Knockturn Alley, disguised as a hag. The more I mutter and screech the less notice people take of me. Did you know McNair actually works for the Ministry? As an executioner. Charming man. He was at Hogwarts the night Sirius escaped – to execute the Hippogriff who bore him to freedom.

Earlier in the week I was tailing Crabbe and Goyle, and I eavesdropped on three hours of the dullest, most stupid conversation you've ever heard. I suppose You-Know-Who might use them to bore muggle-borns to death.

Sorry I'm moaning. It's just I haven't had a letter from Mad-Eye in months, though I keep writing to him. Have you heard from him at all? He was so good at interpreting all the bureaucratic nonsense that comes out of the Ministry. You know, what we tell people versus what's really going on. Without him I feel more and more anxious about things.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _January 19, 1995_

Dear Dora,

Alas no, I'm well out of things these days. I follow along in the papers but of course you can't believe anything you read in the _Prophet_.

I can't help but feel glad that tailing Death Eaters is dull work when it's you doing the tailing. The cold I can help you with, though. When I was doing winter work for the Order I used a combination of the Custard Sock charm and a warming spell. It sounds odd but I promise you, your toes will feel heavenly.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _January 25, 1995_

Custard Sock and a warming charm – I never would have believed it. Thank you, Remus. Shackleton's using it now, too.

Dora

...

 _March 18, 1995_

Moony –

I came up to the cottage last night to see if we could go for a moonlight run, just like old times, only to find you out roaming already. I followed your scent to the moors and you were mighty pleased to see me. There was another wolf with you, small and shaped like a proper wolf, not a werewolf. It took me some time to realise who it was. It was Tonks, wasn't it?

Padfoot

...

 **I want Custard Socks that keep my feet warm! Why didn't I get these for Christmas?**


	20. Chapter 20

**This chapter covers the events at the end of _The Goblet of Fire_ and the first half of _The Order of the Phoenix_.**

...

 _May 17, 1995_

Dear Remus,

I feel like I've bitten into a vomit-flavoured Bertie Botts Every Flavour Bean when I think about the final Tri-Wizard event. I know I haven't met Harry Potter but he looks so small and young in those photographs standing next to the other Champions. You taught him – do you think he'll be capable of this last task, whatever it is? What can they throw at him that's worse than nesting dragons?

I've been trying to imagine what it will be like if the worst happens and You-Know-Who finds a way to come back. Will we make it through a second time? I wish I knew what it was like back then, so I knew what to expect. Really knew, like you do.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _May 19, 1995_

Dear Dora,

Harry was the most capable young wizard I taught. Dumbledore and Mad-Eye will be keeping a close eye on him.

If the worst happens we will find a way through, and we will be ready to fight.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _June 6, 1995_

Remus – Shackleton got a phoenix from Dumbledore. The Order is to reform. He's back. You-Know-Who is back. I can't believe this is happening.

Dora

...

 _June 6, 1995_

Dear Dora,

Sirius arrived at my cottage at nightfall, right after I got your owl. Dumbledore wants him to lay low here with me for a while. He's filled me in on everything that happened at the tournament. I don't know how much of this will have reached your ears at the Ministry yet so here's everything he's told me.

Fudge doesn't believe that Lord Voldemort is back. He insists that Lord Voldemort is dead and will stay dead, and will shortly proclaim publically that Harry and Dumbledore are liars. He has refused to take Azkaban out of the control of the Dementors or to send envoys to the giants. This puts us on the back foot right from the beginning and Voldemort will use it to his advantage.

I have some more grave news, Dora. Barty Crouch Junior has been masquerading as Mad-Eye all year. It wasn't Karkaroff who wanted Harry dead, it was Crouch. He's a Death Eater – or he was. Fudge let a Dementor into the school and that was the end of Crouch Junior. (Another Defence Against the Dark Arts professor meets a sticky end. Didn't I get off lightly?) It's also the end of any news about Lord Voldemort's plans we might have gleaned from Crouch.

In better news, the real Mad-Eye is safe and well. I expect you'll see him before I do.

As you've seen, Dumbledore is marshalling everyone who will believe the truth to his side. Harry's been through an ordeal but he'll recover. Sirius is thin and worried.

It all feels a little unreal, doesn't it? Stay safe, little wolf.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _June 7, 1995_

Dear Remus,

We've been officially told by Fudge that You-Know-Who is not back. It left a foul taste in my mouth to hear it. The Auror Office is the last vestige of sanity in this place, though we have to keep our heads down and what we really think to ourselves.

I am fiercely glad that you and Sirius are together. Fatten him up, and take care of each other, won't you?

Yours,

Dora

...

 _June 10, 1995_

Dear Dora,

Sirius has offered his family home in London to Dumbledore for the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. It's been standing empty for many years now so he and I are going down tomorrow to get the place straightened out. Its probably filled with Boggarts and jinxed door handles. They shall give me a chance to flex my wand arm before the real fighting begins, won't they?

I've just realised – even though you're a Black you've probably never been there. Sirius hasn't been home himself since he ran away at fifteen. I'm afraid the portraits will be very rude to you.

To my surprise, Harry's been sent back to his muggle uncle and aunt for the summer. Dumbledore's instructions. Well, he'll have his reasons.

It's a very odd sensation talking about Voldemort and the Order again. Sirius and I were just saying to each other how it felt like nothing has changed, but at the same time everything has changed.

The first meeting of the Order is two days' time. Mad-Eye will get you there. See you then, little wolf.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _July 20, 1995_

Dear Dora,

Dumbledore's asked the Order to fetch Harry to Headquarters. Sirius can't step a paw outside so I'm going with a few others. Want to come?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _July 21, 1995_

You know I do! What's the plan?

Dora

...

 _July 21, 1995_

Good girl. There'll be about ten of us to protect Harry, just in case there are any Death Eaters lurking about.

We also need to make sure his aunt and uncle aren't there either. Ghastly people, apparently. They wanted to stamp the magic out of Harry and tried to hide his Hogwarts letter from him. Any ideas?

Remus

...

 _July 22, 1995_

I know just the thing.

Dora

...

 _July 23, 1995_

Dear Mr and Mrs Dursley,

Congratulations! You have been short-listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. Please find your invitation for the Awards Dinner on August 6 enclosed.

Yours sincerely,

Maggie Smith-Johnson

President of the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Society

...

 _August 7, 1995_

Dear Dora,

So, what did you make of The Boy Who Lived?

Yours,

Remus

...

 _August 8, 1995_

Dear Remus,

Well, he seemed all right, didn't he, till he started shouting his head off upstairs about being stuck at Privet Drive for a month with those muggles. I suppose he's frustrated, poor sod. I did think he was going to have the light fittings down on us in the middle of the meeting, though.

Sirius and Molly seemed like they were going to come to blows over what we told Harry about You-Know-Who's plans. Sirius's blood was up and Molly seems to be fretting like crazy what with Arthur and Bill being in the Order. Ron goes wherever Harry goes, so he's practically in the Order. My heart hurts for her. It's difficult, as Ron's not of age, but what does You-Know-Who care for his age?

I still can't get over Snape being at the meetings. Every time he looks at me feel cold, and I do wish he'd stop goading Sirius about not being able to leave Headquarters. Sirius is proud and rash and he will do something foolish.

I never told you this, Remus, but after you left Hogwarts I asked for Snape's help with the wolfsbane potion. I thought you should know in case he mentions it. And, well, I just thought you should know. I'm sorry I couldn't get it for you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 9, 1995_

Dora. You did that for me?

 _..._

 _August 10, 1995_

Yes. And it didn't work so I showed up at your cottage as a parrot and got drunk.

...

 _October 20, 1995_

Remus –

Crabbe and Goyle seem to be getting out and about all of a sudden. I need a couple of people to tail them. Take Shackleton with you, or Tonks could do it I suppose.

Mad-Eye

...

 _October 20, 1995_

Mad-Eye –

Either. Fine. Is Dora free?

Remus

...

 _November 29, 1995_

Remus,

Could you keep an eye on the Malfoys for the next three nights? There's a visitor staying at the manor Dumbledore doesn't like the look of. Take back-up.

Arthur

...

 _November 29, 1995_

Dora,

Fancy a visit to your second favourite aunt's?

Remus

...

 _November 29, 1995_

Darling Narcissa! Of course. It's nippy out. Put on your Custard Socks.

Dora

...

 _December 10, 1995_

Dear Dora,

I've noticed that you are spending a lot of time on missions with Remus. Are you all right, dear? Do you need me to have a word with someone about not pairing the two of you up so much?

Love,

Molly

...

 **Happy New Year everyone! xxx**


	21. Chapter 21

**This chapter takes us up until the events at the end of _The Order of the Phoenix_ (the start of the summer of 1996.) A reminder that at the end of the _The Order of the Phoenix_ that Tonks ends up in St Mungo's with minor injuries after the battle at the Ministry, where Bellatrix kills Sirius. **

...

 _December 11, 1995_

Dear Molly,

Oh, no it's fine! We're just friends these days, honestly. I mean, we've always been friends, and I just think of us as friends now.

Love,

Dora

...

 _March 3, 1996_

Remus,

Well, I've been to Grimmauld Place and your cottage and you're not at either. You can't just avoid me for the rest of your life, though you have tried before.

It wasn't the ideal place for a declaration like that, while we're huddled outside Nott's dingy house with wet feet at three in the morning, but I couldn't believe how stupid you were being. Yes, Sirius is still handsome after all those years in Azkaban, but me in love with him? It's perfectly obvious who I love and you'd know it if you'd stopped feeling sorry for yourself.

You have pulled away and pulled away from me over the years because you are afraid of what I might find out about you. But I've seen everything now, remember? You've got nothing else to hide. I fell in love with you such a long time ago. Before you were professor at Hogwarts, though how happy it made me seeing you there, so fulfilled and content. Before we started running together and I saw what a wild, magnificent creature you are. Before poor Charlie Weasley tried to hold my hand coming back from Care of Magical Creatures. My heart had already been filled up by the kind, courageous and funny man who took pity on a poor Hufflepuff who was afraid of the Sorting Hat.

Do you know what my happy memory is, the one I use to summon my Patronus? It was that day in Hogsmeade, my birthday, when you fastened a little rabbit charm to my bracelet and you looked at me like you were seeing me for the first time.

I've waited so long, Remus. It's always been you.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _March 4, 1996_

Dora,

Will you meet me tonight, the Leaky Cauldron at eight?

Remus

...

 _March 6, 1996_

Dear Molly,

I lied, I lied, I lied. Of course I'm still in love with him. Please don't be angry with me. I need to tell someone about what has happened because I feel like it will drown me unless I get it out.

A few nights ago Remus and I were paired up to stake out Nott's house and he spouted some bitter nonsense about me being in love with Sirius. When I told him I loved him it seemed to make things worse. He couldn't even look at me.

He asked me to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron to talk. He was very gentle. Very kind. He told me, 'I would have taken myself off somewhere far away if it wasn't for this war. You deserve someone who is young and whole, not half a beast.'

I didn't want him to be gentle and kind. I wasn't feeling very gentle myself. 'But I don't care what you are! I have never cared.'

Molly, I don't know how many other ways I could have shown him over the years that I don't care. Finally, I said, 'Tell me the memory you use for your Patronus. Tell me truthfully, and if it's not what I think it is I will never speak of this again.'

He sighed deeply and looked at the glass of firewhiskey in his hands. He didn't want to tell me but I badgered him over and over to speak, calling him a coward. Calling him all the worst names I could think of. Finally, after knocking back the rest of his drink he said in a low voice, 'You, just as you are, nestled close against a huge, hairy werewolf, fast asleep. I don't think I slept at all night. I just watched you.'

When he looked up his eyes were bleak. 'But it doesn't make any difference. The difference in our ages … my means … I can barely support myself. I can never be a father and I won't deny you children.'

I was crying silently by then, my hand clamped over my mouth and tears running into my sleeves. He got up from the table and left.

All the colour has faded from my hair, Molly. I don't think it shall ever return.

Dora

...

 _March 7, 1996_

Dora, my poor girl. I've been so afraid something like this was going to happen. Of course you still love him, anyone can see it in your face when the two of you are together. He is being foolish making you both so unhappy.

I remember when you were so young and you were at Hogwarts and I encouraged you to write to him because I thought he needed a friend. I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I should never have done that.

Love,

Molly

...

 _March 9, 1996_

Dear Molly,

Remus and I have come together and fallen apart many times over the years. Don't feel bad. You sending one letter ten years ago is neither here nor there. I think, maybe, we have fallen apart forever now.

Molly, tell me again how you and Arthur eloped together during the last war.

Dora

...

 _March 10, 1996_

Dear Dora,

I will not. I'm not going to give you another reason to lie down and cry. Go and wash your face and eat something, and I want to see you at the Burrow in the next three days. If you don't appear I'm telling Dumbledore to not give you any more assignments.

Love,

Molly

...

 _June 2, 1996_

Dear Dora,

Molly told me not to write to you while you were in St Mungo's but I can't not speak to you after what has happened. At least this way you can cast _Incendio_ on my letter as soon as you see my handwriting if you wish. I'll understand.

We've lost our dear friend Sirius, for good this time. How he managed to come back to us at all after twelve years in Azkaban I'll never know, but I'll always be grateful for this time we had with him.

You fought bravely at the Ministry. Sirius was so proud of you.

Always, your friend,

Remus

...

 _June 4, 1996_

Mad-Eye,

When I get out of St Mungo's I need to be posted somewhere else. I can't be at Grimmauld Place anymore. Put me near Hogwarts – you've said that Harry should have protection close at hand. Please don't ask me why.

Tonks

...

 **Well that was a sad chapter wasn't it. Inspiration for the scene at Nott's came from the Remus character outline on Pottermore. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking read.**


	22. Chapter 22

**This chapter takes us from the middle of _Half-Blood Prince_ to the events at the end of the book, and slightly beyond. Dumbledore was killed by Snape on June 30, 1997, the same night that Bill Weasley was savaged by Fenrir Greyback.**

...

 _December 27, 1996_

Dear Remus,

I overheard what Harry told you on Christmas Day about Dora's Patronus changing and I saw the look on your face. Can you honestly tell me you are surprised? She can't help taking your wolf as her Patronus, and she can't help being in love with you. You are being so very stupid about things. Sometimes I wonder if you enjoy being miserable.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _February 15, 1997_

Dear Molly,

I know you and Arthur have been keeping the truth from me about Remus's whereabouts to protect me but I made Dumbledore tell me. He's gone to live among werewolves and spy on them for the Order. I was stunned when he told me. Remus is not like other werewolves. Or at least, he's not like Greyback and his ilk. They will eat him alive or else he will have to do terrible things to prove himself on their side.

Remus seems to have a death wish. When I said as much to Dumbledore he was silent for some minutes but he didn't disagree. How dare he walk into death willingly when so many lives have already been lost.

Dora

...

 _April 3, 1996_

Dear Professor Lupin,

Sorry, I wrote that without thinking! I wasn't sure who I should tell, or if I should tell at all. I don't want to get her into trouble by talking to Dumbledore or Mad-Eye. It's not her fault she's sad. I thought of you, and that she might talk to you. You were such good friends last year and I think she really likes you – Tonks, I mean.

Harry, Ron and I have seen her a few times in the last months and she looks sadder and thinner on every occasion. Last night Harry ran into her at school and she got so upset when he mentioned Sirius. I just thought someone should know.

Regards,

Hermione Granger

...

 _May 29, 1997_

Dear Hermione,

I'm sorry for my late reply, I've been away on work for the Order for several months. Thank you for telling me about Tonks. Your heart is in the right place but I'm afraid she won't want to talk to me. We were good friends for a while but we haven't been close lately. I suspect I know what has upset her. I'll have a word to Molly Weasley.

Lupin

...

 _May 31, 1997_

Dear Dora,

He's alive, and he's back. I have just seen him and he's exhausted and a mess of scrapes and scratches but otherwise intact. I scolded him for an hour about how much worry he's put everyone through and he had the grace at least to look sheepish.

How are you up at the school, dear? I have worried as much about you as I have about him. Come and have tea with me. Don't worry, I haven't got it in my heart to scold you.

Love,

Molly

...

 _June 1, 1997_

Dear Molly,

I got your letter and I ate a plate of sausages and fried tomatoes out of sheer relief. It's the first proper meal I've had in months and I felt a bit sickly afterwards but on the whole so much better. I don't care if I never see him again. I just want him to be safe.

Love,

Dora

...

 _July 2, 1997_

Dear Dora,

Little Dora. Though you aren't little anymore, are you? Sometimes I can't help thinking of you that way, the Hufflepuff who was afraid of her aunts. Lately it's been safer for me to keep away from you and maintain you like that in my mind, as someone to be held at arm's length. Off limits. Still growing and in need of guidance and protection, though I couldn't give it anymore.

But you don't need that, do you? What a wonder you have grown into. Why would you need someone like me? Why would you want me, as old and scarred and inadequate as I am? There have been times over the years – when we started running together, and during the first year the Order was reformed – when I saw that you are not a child, that you are a very beautiful young woman, and I began to think of you in ways other than friend. And when I was at Hogwarts. Especially then, actually. You're right, I was happy there, and I did start to hope there might be something for us. I wanted so badly to kiss you on your birthday in the Three Broomsticks. I told myself that if I survived the year at Hogwarts and started on a second I would ask you if I could. But it wasn't to be.

How many nights we've spent asleep together, curled around each other in the bracken, dusty and exhausted, or safe and drunk on warmth at Hogwarts. One of us was always careful to be awake and gone before the other roused, but it became harder and harder for me to leave you over the years. Do you remember when it was bitterly cold and we slept in a nest of blankets on the floor of my cottage? I woke to find us both in our true forms. It had been so long since I'd held a girl in my arms, Dora. I thought about kissing you awake for a very long time, and when I'd let my mind run over that pretty fantasy for a while I put it away and left you sleeping.

Professor McGonagall seems to inject every word she says to me with vague disapproval and it was no different the other day when we were clustered round Bill Weasley's bedside in the hospital wing. 'Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.' I was angry with you for bursting out in front of everyone like that, and embarrassed that they should know our private affairs. I felt that they must all be judging me for thinking I could have someone like you.

It's not easy for me to say this, and I still question whether I should. I suppose it's been coming on for many years now, though if I had to say when I started to realise it, it would have been under moonlight. Will you think badly of me if I tell you I have always been happy as a wolf? I dread and hate it in my lucid hours, but when I'm changed I am free, and I couldn't deny what a precious creature you were to me in those hours that I can remember. You are one of the very few people in the world who haven't made me feel like the monster I am.

I've been a miserable ass about it all, and stubborn as one, too, but I love you, Dora. If you haven't changed your mind or been talked round to some more sensible way of thinking by the people who love you, will you meet me tonight, tomorrow, the very moment you get this? Send me your Patronus, little wolf. I will find you.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _July 2, 1997_

Dear Molly,

I am full up with happiness. I am brimming like a lake after a storm and I am refreshed, alive, awake. The loveless sluggard who had taken up resident in my body is banished.

This morning I was in my shabby little London flat when his owl came through the window. I cried out when I saw his handwriting because I knew there was hope after all. Remus wouldn't write if he meant to stay away, he's too stupid and noble for that. It was a long letter, one of the longest I have ever got from him, filled with doubt and deprecation, but so much love, too.

He asked to see me if I hadn't changed my mind. My wand arm was shaking so hard I could barely cast my Patronus, but finally the wolf shot from the wand tip and raced out the window. A few minutes later he Apparated into my flat, looking abashed and uncertain. His hair's too long and his jacket is patched at the elbows and he was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

'Your Patronus nearly knocked me flat when it leapt through my window just now. I have to say –' and he finally smiled '– that though I miss the rabbit, it does suit you. The wolf.'

I flung myself into his arms. 'Of course it suits me, it's _you_.' I was so overwrought I cried stupid tears into his neck, and he kissed me and asked me to marry him.

We sat together for some time, holding hands and talking through the years and everything that has happened. I drank him in, wanting to remember every scar on his face, the crinkles by his eyes when he smiles, the gingery whiskers on his cheeks. When it started getting dark he left, but he has promised to come again tomorrow when we must start talking sensibly about our future. I don't want to be sensible though! I am too happy to be sensible.

Love and love and love and love,

Dora

...

 **You can stop reading now! They're happy and in love and getting married, there's nothing more to know! THE END***

 ***sob***

 **(*Not really the end.)**


	23. Chapter 23

**Thank you for the lovely comments about Remus's love letter yesterday, it made me so happy to write it and I'm glad it sounded like him.**

...

 _July 3, 1997_

Dear Dora,

My dear, at last. This is the very best thing I could hope to happen after that terrible night at Hogwarts. Bill and Fleur and now you and Remus. I wish Dumbledore was here to see this, but I feel somehow he must know. How well matched you and Remus are, and how happy you are going to make each other.

You must come to dinner this week. I want to kiss each of you and see the smiles on your faces. Bill has the same hankering for rare meat that Remus has, though other than that and the scars he seems much the same. Fleur has surprised me so much over these last few days. There have been many times that I wished I could have you as my daughter-in-law instead, but ... well, she has more depth of feeling than I gave her credit for.

Love,

Molly

...

 _July 7, 1997_

My love,

Can it be a quiet affair, just a handful of people? Molly and Arthur, your parents and my father? I know Molly has offered us the Burrow and your father wants to make it a large wedding, and he's right that we haven't had much to celebrate lately what with the war. But let Bill and Fleur have that honour. I don't want a fuss, and there's the new anti-werewolf legislation to think of. I worry – you know I do. I don't want anything to happen to you because of me. I just want you as my wife and everything else can go hang.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _July 8, 1997_

Dear Remus,

Silly man, that's all I want to. A big bash would be fun of course, but being married to you is the most important thing. Molly has told me all about eloping with Arthur during the last war and it sounded terribly romantic. Shall we? I mean, we'll invite the people you mentioned, but shall we just run away and arrange it all, just us two, and send them owls with the date and time?

All my love,  
Dora

...

 _July, 9, 1997_

Yes, I think we shall, sweet girl. Can you arrange some time off from the Ministry? I know a beautiful spot up north and a cottage we can borrow from a friend for our honeymoon. It's so far away from everything we might even forget the rest of the world exists, for a few days at least.

Love,

Remus

...

 _July 29, 1997_

Dear Molly,

Thank you so much for being at our wedding last week, and Arthur too. It was wonderful having you there! Not a true elopement because we had the five of you with us but it felt romantic and clandestine all the same. Remus looked so happy, didn't he? It made my heart ache to see him smiling. My husband. I feel like a silly teenager when I whisper that to myself. We spent a few nights in a little cottage after with no one around but us and nothing more strenuous to think about than what to cook for lunch. Heaven.

But something has happened, Molly. I have just found out something terrible and Remus is going to be very angry with me. I'm pregnant. I think it must have happened the night he asked me to marry him. We agreed I would take the Nonconceptique potion the next day and each month going forward, because he has been very firm about not having children all along. It seems I didn't make it right, though, and now that I think about it I may have ruined that first batch on purpose, though it was unconsciously done, I swear. He married me on the condition that we would never have children and I agreed. I did mean that promise because I knew that there would never be anyone else for me. Only, I have always thought how lovely it would be to bear his children, and when I imagine him as a father I start to feel all weepy and wistful.

How am I going to tell him? You know what he's like. He would never shout at me but he can get so coldly furious when things go against the way he thinks they should be. I don't care if the child is a little bit like him, or completely like him. That it wouldn't matter to me, I would still love it, but I know it would matter deeply to him.

Sometimes he doubts that I love him. I can see it in his eyes though he never says so. I wonder if he's going to think this proves that I don't, as I don't respect his wishes. But I do! It was just a terrible mistake. I didn't really think I would get pregnant just like that, though I admit I was sloppy with making the potion.

Some nights I wake up and he's not next to me in bed and I get so frightened that he's left me. We've only just got married. Merlin's beard, I'm a nervous wreck.

I'm going to tell him tonight and I will see you at the Order on Wednesday, and then at Bill's wedding. If Remus seems funny at either, you'll know why.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 4, 1997_

Molly,

He seemed tense at Bill's wedding, didn't he? When we had to leave early because the Minister showed up he wouldn't speak to me, and I couldn't tell if he was angry at me, himself, or just the world. Maybe all three. He was very good about it last week when I told him I was pregnant. I mean, he wasn't happy, but he put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head, though he didn't speak for some time.

Being driven away from the wedding by the Ministry seems to have done something to him. I think he felt ashamed of himself. He might be regretting marrying me. He left his cottage this morning with the most peremptory of goodbyes. I've sent him my Patronus three times this afternoon but he hasn't replied. I have a terrible feeling he's gone for good.

What if he's gone to do something foolish like when he ran off to live with the other werewolves? What have I done?

Dora

...

 **Poor Dora!**

 **It's extremely tight timing for Tonks and Remus to get together shortly after Dumbledore's death on June 30 and for her to know she's pregnant by the end of July, but it's how it is in the books. It's not impossible if they went to bed together right away and she got suspicious did some magical pregnancy test at the end of the month. It makes me happy to think that once they did finally admit they loved each other they couldn't wait any longer.**

 **Another way it could have been written is that Tonks and Remus were already sleeping together before the night Dumbledore died and she declared so publically that she loved him. But Remus is too honourable in this headcanon to take advantage of a girl hopelessly in love with him that way. It could happen in another sort of story though, under the right circumstances.**


	24. Chapter 24

_August 7, 1997_

Dora,

I've done it again, haven't I? I've run away just like I did when Narcissa wrote to you about me. When you found me in Flourish & Blotts that summer. When you declared that you loved me. How you must be tired of me. I dress it up in my mind as the noble thing to do, but it's really the selfish thing. I'm running away for myself, not to protect you.

I went to Grimmauld Place and offered my help to Harry. I thought he'd be pleased. I told him it would be what his father wanted. Do you know what he said? 'Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless they've got to.' I'm afraid I got very angry with him for saying that, and I stormed out.

When I finally calmed down I thought about my own parents. They went through hell for me but they never abandoned me. My poor mother. I always felt it was harder on her, being a muggle. When I was a very young man I wanted to apologise to her for what I was, but then she died and I missed the chance. Now that I'm going to be a father myself I'm glad that I never did. I would have insulted her, I think. She loved me.

I have no right to ask this after what I've done to you, but might you take me back? Your understanding and love have been stretched perhaps beyond breaking point. I can only ask for your forgiveness. I don't expect it.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _August 7, 1997_

Remus,

There is only love for you in my heart, and it will be forever. Come home, my darling.

All my love,

Dora

...

 _August 8, 1997_

Dear Molly,

He came home last night, a weak mess of self-reproach and his eyes red-rimmed. I didn't hide my pain and disappointment from him as he needed to see it. But he had my forgiveness too, and my love. I knew it wouldn't be easy to be with a man like Remus as so many things are stacked against us. I don't excuse what he's done but I can see that it's not all his fault.

I have been doing some reading and I have begun to hope that the child won't suffer like him. There is very little to go on, but the few references I have found point toward lycanthropy not being heritable. Remus is not convinced, but he has told me he will be there for the child no matter what, as his parents were there for him.

If things ever go back to normal and I return to the Ministry I'm going to make it my first duty to track down Greyback and lock him up, for Remus and for Bill. For now, Remus and I are going to be quiet at his cottage together, just the two of us. He'll see to the garden and I'll bottle fruits and things. We need time to feel like a family. Perhaps its selfish with the war going on, but we have given so much of ourselves already that I hope people will understand.

Yours,

Dora

...

 _August 9, 1997_

Dear Dora,

It was not for nothing you were sorted into Hufflepuff, was it? Kindness and understanding, you abound with it, and Remus has needed so much of it.

You are not selfish in the least. I didn't let Arthur join the Order during the last war because we were a young family and I needed him more than they did. Enjoy this time you have together, my dear, you deserve every second.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _December 27, 1997_

Dear Dora,

It was wonderful having you and Remus with us for Christmas. The house has felt empty with Bill and Fleur at their little cottage and Ron … Well, all the cooking and guests did keep my mind off what Ron, Harry and Hermione are doing.

You are simply glowing with your pregnancy, and it made my heart glad to see how attentive Remus was to you. I spied you kissing in the larder and it did make a middle-aged woman smile. Young love.

Yours,

Molly

...

 _January 2, 1998_

Dear Molly,

Young love! More like hippopotamus love, I'm huge! And I'm only getting bigger. I'm writing this on the sofa next to Remus. He's got a book in one hand and his other on my belly. Every time the baby kicks he smiles. I don't think he knows he's doing it.

I think about your Ron often, and Harry and Hermione too. So much responsibility on their young shoulders. But they will be all right. Dumbledore had faith in them and we can always trust Dumbledore.

I'm going to open another bottle of peaches. It's my third today but they taste like sunshine and I can't help myself.

Love,

Dora

...

 _March 10, 1998_

Lupin,

We need you at the Order. Can you come to the next meeting?

Arthur

...

 _March 11, 1998_

Arthur,

I'm sorry but I can't. Dora needs me. She's starts to worry if I'm away from the house for too long. It's my fault. I deserted her so many times over the years and the most recent time I still haven't forgiven myself for. I'm not going to hurt her again.

Lupin

...

 _March 13, 1998_

Dear Remus,

Arthur just told me that he wrote to you a few days ago about the Order. I was furious with him when I found out. Of course you must stay with Dora. You have both done more than your share in this war and you deserve this time for yourselves.

Love,

Molly

...

 _March 15, 1998_

Don't be angry with Arthur, Molly. In a way I should go. I feel guilty about leaving the Order to fight without me and I'm getting terribly out of practise. I'll think about coming back once Dora feels more secure, if anyone can feel secure in these times, but for now I belong here with her.

My wife is as round as the moon and she has never been more beautiful.

Yours,

Remus

...

 _April 15, 1998_

Dear Dora,

Remus came to see us last night – it's a boy! I am so, so happy for you. It makes me wistful for another baby boy of my own. I can't wait to meet little Teddy.

It was wonderful to see Remus after so many months and looking so happy. You have been so brave, dear girl, all these years, and you have always done what is good and right, even when it has been the harder choice. Teddy is the luckiest little boy in the world because he has parents who truly know what love is and how to fight for it.

All my love,

Molly

...

 _April 17, 1998_

Dear Molly,

I'm scratching this out to you while Remus walks up and down the kitchen with Teddy in his arms. He's not crying or fussing, Remus just doesn't want to put him down yet. We are the most stupidly enamoured new parents. I'm sure we're going to spoil our little Teddy rotten and he'll grow up to be completely insufferable. But we will love him anyway.

The war has to end soon, doesn't it? There can't be war when something so small and precious has come into the world. I feel like it will end soon.

Love and sleeplessness and even more love,

Dora

...

 _May 2, 1998_

Narcissa,

We haven't spoken in many long years but tonight I'm watching over my infant grandson and I find that my thoughts have turned to you. We used to be close, do you remember? How I loved my two big sisters. How ambitious we all were, and how proud. Over the years each of us have found different things to love and be proud of, some I have been able to reconcile, and some not.

An hour ago I watched my daughter kiss her son and go to join her husband. They are fighting Death Eaters, Cissy. I couldn't stop her, no matter how many times I told her that Teddy needs her. That I need her. 'Remus needs me more tonight,' she said. Since she was at school my daughter would do anything for that man, no matter what I've said to her.

She is so strong. So brave. But when I think of what she is facing tonight my heart fills with terror. I have already lost my husband in this war and I know the fear you must be feeling tonight for Lucius and Draco. It has been many years since I realised that Bellatrix is too far gone and I will never reach her again. But you, Cissy – you have so much love in you for your family. It's not too late for you to put aside our differences and help end this. I don't know what you can do, but there must be something. Please, Cissy. I am begging you.

I don't know if this letter will reach you in time but I plead with you in any case – for the love that we once shared for each other, for the love we have for our children. Maybe this isn't even a plea to you, but a plea to anything that might be out there, guiding the people we love on their paths tonight: keep them safe. Keep them safe.

Andromeda

...

 _June 8, 1998_

My dear Andromeda,

There has been such a pain in my heart since we lost our Fred last month, a pain you so regretfully share. I can't write this without the tears coming again. Dora was like another daughter to me and I despair that she is gone. I am angry with myself that I missed her funeral and the chance to grieve with you. I understand she and Remus are buried together in the cemetery at Hogsmeade, so close to the place where they fell in love. Dora wrote to me often and told me how happy she was with Remus in the hours they spent together there.

I want you to know that Arthur and I and our children will do our part in keeping their memories alive for little Teddy, so he may know in time how brave and beautiful his mother and father were. Promise to bring Teddy often to the Burrow, so he and you can be as much a part of our family as Dora and Remus were.

They are gone, and we will never be the same.

All my love,

Molly

...

 **THE END**

...

 **I cried writing this chapter and I cried editing it. I intended to stop this story at the point where Teddy is born as you all know what happens next and it would be painful to write and read, but Molly Weasley was such a big part of it that I wanted to share her love for Dora and Remus.**

 **It wasn't conscious, but I think I wrote a little resentment for Remus into Andromeda's letter. I'm sure she liked him once she got to know him, but deep down felt uneasy about the dangerous, unsuitable man that her daughter had had strong feelings for, one way or another, since she was a schoolgirl. It was so clever of JK to make Dora a Hufflepuff, the house that shows unswerving loyalty and kindness. Hufflepuff doesn't get a lot of glory, as she notes in _The Goblet of Fire_ , but Dora shows just how much difference a Hufflepuff can make.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this story. I think it's one of the best things I've ever written and I loved hearing from you all as you read along.**

 **All my love,**

 **premadora girl**


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